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Speedy trial for traffic ticket? (Mass)



  I have just received notice of a hearing for a traffic citation I
was issued 2.5 years ago.  (There were a number of complications,
including the RMV sending the notice of a hearing back then to
Hudson, Mass, rather than Hudson, NH, and I never got it; also
the original ticket said "unsafe lane change" [I'd made a lot of
safe lane changes, I guess that adds up to one unsafe lane change :-) ]
plus speeding, but since then it's only been speeding.)
  I'd like to beat this because default means 6 years of insurance
surcharges (or lack of safe-driver discount, same difference), even
without a conviction ("found responsible") finding.

  Question:  Is there a right to a speedy trial in a traffic
violation?  Is 2.5 years not speedy in Massachusetts?  If so,
how do I invoke the right (other than hoping the officer is
truthful when I ask him "Do you really remember the events
of October, 1992, or are you just reading notes?")
  Statutes of limitations don't apply, do they?

  When the Registrar of Motor Vehicles wrote to me in December, 1992,
telling me I'd be notified of a hearing, he said (in answer to my
question) that when I got the hearing I could ask about compulsory
process.  (There was an ad on the radio just before I was pulled over
that started "Stop what you're doing -- unless you're driving 60mph",
which could lend credibility to my claim that I looked at my speedometer,
which could lend credibility to my claim that I wasn't going 75mph, but
that's a long shot anyway, if it comes down to the officer's word against
mine.)  How would I ask for this, to compel the radio station to give
me a log and transcript?  
-- 
David Chesler (chesler@tiac.net - CURRENT   chesler@world.std.com - SOMETIMES
             dchesler@jurisoft.com - WORK   david@chesler.absol.com - ALWAYS)

 They came for the Branch Davidians, but I wasn't a Branch Davidian...



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