58% Of People Who Fought Traffic Tickets In Washington D.C. Won
How likely is it that I’ll win if I fight my traffic ticket in court? This is a question we get a lot and the truth is that it varies pretty wildly depending on the location.
It’s rare to get a straight answer from local governments on this topic but a recent report in the Washington Examiner exposed some interesting statistics on ticket fighting in Washington D.C.
Here are the bullet points:
22,693 moving violation challenges
58 percent of drivers won
117,656 parking ticket challenges
41 percent of drivers won
20,251 photo ticket challenges
37 percent of drivers won
2,211 appeals from lost initial challenges
33 percent of drivers won
The last statistic refers to situations where a driver challenged a ticket and lost initially but then filed an appeal of the decision.
As you can see, the odds are actually much higher than most people would think. And the odds would likely increase if more people fought their tickets. The Examiner also presented statistics that show that most people don’t bother to even try fighting tickets:
- Overall, the city issued some 2.4 million tickets in fiscal 2009.
- Only 3 percent of photo tickets were challenged .
- 7 percent of parking tickets were challenged.
- 20 percent of moving violations were challenged.
The paper quoted AAA, ostensibly to give the everyday drivers’ perspective on the statistics, but instead they offered their (increasingly typical) anti-motorist perspective:
“These numbers are so staggering to me,” said AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman John Townsend, whose agency unearthed the performance plan. “Something is wrong with the system.”
As an auto insurance company, AAA, is probably upset that they’re missing out on the additional revenue that those dismissed traffic tickets would have generated. The system is broken, but successful challenges of traffic tickets are a good sign. The discouraging part is the low percentage of people of who are taking their cases to court.
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It's one of the "great" American past times: complaining about unfair speeding tickets. There are two types of people when it comes to complaining about this particular type of traffic ticket. Which group are you in?
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Insurance companies have nothing to gain from people breaking laws and not suffering the consequences, one of which is having to pay increased premiums. Given that some of the most commonly enforced laws are the most poorly conceived ones, there's quite a hefty profit to be made for jacking up the rates of these "unsafe" drivers.
That's not to say that the increased premiums are never earned, but rather that $20 bucks extra per month (or whatever it is) for 5 MPH over the limit is obscene.
Have you heard of "GEICO gun"? GEICO bankrolled uncounted police departments with the purchase of LTI 20/20 laser guns so the cops could write more tickets armed with those laser guns.
GEICO in turn scans its policy holders' state driving records every time their policies are up for renewal and jacks up their insurance rates whenever there is even the smallest blemish showing up on record. That is why it is very important to fight every ticket–to keep those insurance companies' hand out of your pocket.
They are not called insurance cartels for no reason. Slick commercials can only soften their public image so much.
What I don't get is that people are not up-in-arms over the fact that the Government allows personal driving records to be accessed by non-goverment agencies. In Mexico and Germany, this is a privacy issue and is illegal. It's a great scam though. The Government requires US drivers to have insurance and then allows the Insurance Companies to charge what they want. Another example of the corruption in the US Traffic Enforcement System.
Haven't heard of the "Geico Gun" until now. But now that I have, the commercial with the money watching people makes a whole different sense!
Actually James is mostly correct. I live in MD and have felt the wrath of the traffic courts here in many parts of the state. Every Jurisdiction in the state of MD is different. Some areas are more lenient than others. he's right, in my experiences courts will reduce your fine just for showing up to court and will even very often reduce your ticket speed. In Carroll County they reduce fine and points on speeding violations. In Baltimore County (Towson, MD) Twice I had judges give PBJ out like candy. PBJ is where you pay a fine and get no points. Fortunately the second time I went there my cop didn't show up. Not Guilty. Eastern shore near ocean city the judge is really strict down there in snow hill, md. He too would reduce fines and points but was a real dick about it. He even gave this one chick who pleaded not guilty a new court date because her cop wasn;t there! i was shocked and so was she! She even said but my cops not here. The judge replied "yeah I know that's why I'm rescheduling." I was like damn.
Anyways, yeah most of the time the cop will be there, i would say count on it. Yes they do get over time to be there too.
James, I would like to know where you are getting your information? Do you have someone working at the courthouse or do you have personal experience or do you have articles you have read from your local newspaper?
I am not sure where you are coming up with 5 mph over limit tickets as being the big problem? Funny how the police are letting all the ones going 10 mph or even 20 mph over the limit off just to get those going 5 mph over the limit.
There are many insurance companies out there. If there is one insurance company that feels like you do that breaking laws should not increase your rates, then you would have thousands of people like yourself flocking to that company and they would be rich if in fact the accident payouts do not increase like other insurance companies believe..
There are a few problems with your quotes krisnevels. The first one says 124,000 tickets were issued to innocent drivers. Were they innocent or found not guilty because of a policeman not showing up or similar problems. There is a huge difference.
I found the Chicago reference you had. It was parking tickets"Yet from January through March, almost three quarters of some 6,000 meter violations challenged in the city's administrative courts were dismissed after hearing officers ruled that drivers were not liable or the tickets contained errors, city officials said in response to the Tribune's FOIA request."
The same thing about the Boston tickets. The article said that you can contest a parking ticket by mail, online or by phone. The people that hear the complaints are not city officials or judges, but students. The article also said that even if you are guilty you can often get by with a warning.
I do not think that this site is about cracking down on parking tickets and insurance companies I am sure would care less about parking tickets.
It appears that D.C. isn't the only city where drivers who appeal tickets are walking away scot-free.
Here are some examples:
* In Los Angeles, more than 124,000 tickets were issued to innocent drivers amounting to nearly $6 million in tickets that were dismissed after being fought and won. (Source: LA Times)
* Drivers ticketed in Boston had tickets dismissed more than 60% of the time. (Source: Boston Globe)
* Last year, Chicago courts dismissed about 75% of tickets (in a three month period) after hearing officers ruled that drivers were not liable or the ticket contained errors. (Source: Chicago Tribune)
* New York City drivers are finding it harder to get tickets dismissed since the city introduced a settlement program. Still, 22% percent of challengers had tickets dismissed in 2008. (Source: The NY Times)
So, obviously there is an issue with not only the ticketing system in the District, but in cities nationwide. This is a widespread problem, as most drivers are discovering, no matter where they park.
Kristin Nevels
AAA Mid-Atlantic, Public & Government Affairs
In md and va, the police always show up, and are paid overtime to do so.
However, the court also gives reductions away like candy. Which ensures that people will keep coming to traffic court, which insures that they won't lose their job. Crooked, but at least this corruption benefits the motorist.
The only thing that this article shows is that the policemen are not showing up in court enough of the time. That is why AAA says that the system is broken. Insurance companies have nothing to gain from people breaking any laws. The more people that break traffic laws the more chances that there are costly accidents for the insurance companies to pay off on. Since there are dozens of reports that show that the people that break the most laws have the most accidents, if the people that are breaking the laws are not paying more for insurance then everyone else is paying for their increased risks.
This is an alias of Randy100 who was previously banned. His new account has been banned and his IPs have been blocked.
I thought I was just paranoid thinking that. Thanks.
I was at a bar recently and overheard a guy talking about mailing in his guilty plea for a six-point moving violation. That's more than half of someone's license around here, where state DMV starts to suspend licenses with eleven or more points.
What irked me was the lightheartedness in the tone of that gentleman, as if he could live easily with at least a month of license suspension out here in the country with no public transportation, plus fines and surcharges, plus hiked insurance premiums for the foreseeable future. Granted, he was youthful by appearance and probably had not tasted too much pain the world could cause him. I felt very sorry for him, who basically cut up and mailed in half of his license.