I just came back from my east coast road trip from MD to GA. On my way back, we decided to cruise the Appalachian trails off interstate 77N to 81N.

As we crossed into Virginia, I see this state trooper on the center median pointed to south bound lanes. After I pass him he turns his cruiser around to northbound and 10 minutes later far down the road he tags me while I'm cruising at the speed limit.

He claimed that I was doing 80 on 65 zone and then issues two tickets for speeding and having a radar detector. My reponse to him was that the portion of road was descending hill and that I was following the flow of traffic and the device was merely for electronic compass direction. No luck, this green rookie cop states that I can show up at his court in hicksville -VA. mad:

I am definetly planning to contest the the charge of speeding on the grounds of profiling! There were other cars speeding behind me and I am sure he targeted my red import sports car!

Any advise would be appreciated and anyone know if speeding points transfer over from VA to Maryland?

thx

 

geez..
sorry to hear that man. Good luck fighting the man.

 

good luck fighting that in VA. I got the same ticket about 4 years ago, VA cops are the worst of the worst.

 

you can contact the county where the ticket was written. try talking to a d.a. there and see what he can do.

i had a ticket up in the n.c. mtns that i forgot about but they sent it to wake county where i live and raleigh p.d. showed up at the house a few months later knocking on the door. i answer and am promptly arrested in my front yard.

i know you can change the court you can show up at given enough time. so make sure you call asap!

 

so wait - were you "cruising at the speed limit." or were you speeding while "following the flow of traffic"?

the only reason i ask is that i had a normal looking honda back in the day and i was once picked out at random from a group of drivers who were all driving over the speed limit. i was just "following the flow of traffic" and there were plenty of people in front of and behind me that cop could've stopped, but for some reason he stopped me. so it only makes sense that if they can do that with a group of everyday cars, then they WILL do that when there's one car in the bunch that catches their eye.

don't take me wrong, it sux that you got stoped and ticketed, but it could (and has) happened to anyone, not just people in sports cars.

of course, if you weren't speeding, that's a horse of a different color...

 

Were you going 80 in a 65?
Did your detector go off?
Did he show you the radar/laser gun readout?
Was there a lot of traffic?
Could another car have blocked his radar gun from tagging you?
Why did it take 10 minutes for him to catch you?
Were you out of his sight at any time?

 

that sucks man, good luck

 

sorry spyderx but im assuming your guilty .... going at the speed limit is going by what is posted, not by what others drive hahahahahaha

you were also stupid for not putting away your radar detector ..... if the cops ask what my suction cups are doing on the window i'll say i used to have lil cute animals hanging on it......

and last, going downhill doesnt give you even a slightly legit reason to speed...

dude your a whiner.... stop complaining and just fight it in court... end of story

 

DONT fight I am saying DONT fight it. COPS in VA are no joke if you get pulled over it means a ticket. The judge will make you pay court fees and the charge will be twice as much. Radar detectors are illegal in VA and you are lucky that he did not take it from you right there. Just swallow your looses and pay the ticket. I know that you were with the traffic but fighting this ticket won’t get anywhere.

 

hrmm, i had wreckless, forgot to show up in court, got reduced to "exceeding by 20 mph" but not "wreckless dirving" made my ins. go up 3.00 a month, and only paid a 45.00 fine.....

thats in VA, Fairfax County

 

as i understand it, radar sends off a signal, and it bounces off of the biggest thing and returns to sending device. so if truly you were in a "group" of traffic, you could argue that he may have got the signal off of someone else. if there was a truck there, or something. maybe this has been updated, but i would try to figure out if he got you with radar, or laser. and was there proper signage to tell you that in virginia you can not have a radar detector? if you werent from there i cant believe that they would make you pay a fine for violating a law that doesnt exist in the other 49 states. good luck

 

Your right about the radar sending off a signal...when the radar sends out a signal its looking for something to catch the signal(ie, a billet grill on a truck) and then obviously it sends it back to the gun. It cant however get a reading off something like you door since it doesn't catch the signal and provide a reading. So if you were traveling in a pack of cars as you say you were, in order for him to pick you out of the pack you would have to have something shinny or whatever to catch the signal, so more than likely he did not get you. But thats up for the courts to decide and not me and you
On the issue of the radar detector, everyone is right, they are illegal in VA. Anyone who has seen mischief and mischief 3000 knows this as when dustin gets pulled over they scramble to hide it. So i dont know what to tell you on that part other than good luck .

 

Did you get a "reckless" charge in the citation? Was it a mandatory court appearance?
80 is reckelss in **** VA. If it's not a reckless and you have aclean record, you have a good chance for plea bargaining for a fine, school 3mo probation and no points.
Reckless could normally be reduces to 1-9mph violation - 3point, 200fine and 250 lawyer in a southern VA 5hithole.
Cop might have figured out that driver of those cars next to you that cost less than your brakes would not have $$ to pay the fine anyways, so he got you instead.

 

Or you could just take "STOP" class .... I don't know about other states but we have that here in Nebraska .... and no points get deducted off your license, thus your insurance doesn't go up

 

actually, i grew up in a rather small town and worked at the local TV station. we had the chief-of-police in a lot for our morning show and i got to know him pretty well. he said that radar used to work like that, but guns that they have now are precise enough that they can get a reading off of one car in a pack, and from a long way off. and i really don't think he was feeding me BS just to keep me from speeding or whatever - we talked all the time about all kinds of police stuff and i got a lot of good info out of him.

plus, cops can use judgment to make calls - and if they tag someone behind you who is driving over the speed limit, that means you were definitly over since you're ahead of them. and if they chose to get you then that's their choice.