Speeding tickets

Speed thrills but kills. If it doesn’t kill, it surely costs a lot of money. We’re talking about the fine required to pay if found crossing the speed limit. Speeding tickets are fines issued by a government official, namely traffic police when an individual is found crossing the speed limits. The speed limit for roads varies with different countries and the locality. Roads where schools, educational institutions and hospitals are present have a lower speed limit than other roads.

The speeding ticket also called citation is a sort of summon issued by a law enforcement officer. This is prepared and served at the site of law breachment. This puts the ticket receiver to oblige and be presented before a local magistrate or judge at the local court. The defendant has to answer for not obeying traffic rules or defend himself.

The individual can pay the indicated fine or plead guilty or not guilty. The court is attended by the accused, the police officer who produced the ticket and the magistrate usually with 10 days. This appearance has to be done within a stipulated time period. The person might be penalized or put in prison according to the magistrate’s judgment. Negligence on the part of the defendant to appear for the court proceedings allows the magistrate to penalize for failure to appear at court.

 The offence on the part of the person can be classified as misdemeanor or felony. A misdemeanor is a lesser crime which is usually punished for in the form of fines. A felony is a more serious offence. Hence a misdemeanor comes with 5 days to a year in prison whereas a felony can be charged with more than a year in jail. The collateral consequences of criminal charges as speeding or reckless driving will be loss of privileges as license suspended or loss of license points and insurance points.  

 

                                      Speeding tickets

Speed limit is that which is set by the government to be followed, and is the highest speed that can be attempted by any motorist or driver on the road. Speed limits vary for different roads and also depends on a variety of environmental conditions as in rain, fog snow etc.  There are speed limits set on the lowest scale indicating the minimum to be used on the road.

Speeding tickets are issued to offenders of speed limits.  In olden days, Speeding was monitored by calculating the time taken to travel two set points. Now, radar systems help in detecting speeding on vehicles. Speeding tickets are issued by the traffic police at the site of crime.

The accused has to pay the necessary fine to the court. Otherwise, he/ she can defend themselves by pleading not guilty or not guilty at the court. Mistakes in, the driver identity, travelling direction, the road or street where the speeding has reportedly occurred, vehicle description can be in favor of the accused. Writing mistakes, as a wrong numbers or errors in the order of a person’s name, are overlooked. Situations where the officer is not present for the case hearing at court, usually ends in favour of the accused. But there are times when the officer is given another chance to appear in court and present his side of the case.

There are records for various categories of speeding. This includes the fastest speeding offence by 272 mph in a 75 mph zone. The first ever speeding ticket was reportedly issued at Ohio in 1904 for a speed of 12 miles per hour. The fine was $10. Finland has the relative rule of fining based on the accused’s last income amount. Hence Salonoja, an industry heir in Finland was reportedly fined 170,000 Euros which holds record for the most expensive speeding ticket.

                                    Speeding tickets

For most citizens, the first brush with the law system occurs through speeding tickets. Speeding tickets inform the accused of the racing above the set limits and also indicates the fine necessary to be paid. Speeding tickets not only offer to reduce the road rage and chaos but also provides revenue for the state. A typical speeding ticket consists of the driver’s name, license number, street and city, state, name of the officer, date of arrest and violation, date of appearance to court, time of violation etc.

Driving license is suspended when the history of a driver indicates that he might be a source of potential danger to others or even himself. The initial suspension is commonly for about sixty days, the second for about six months and any following suspension for a period of one year.

Suspension can also be due to reasons as driving under influence of drugs or alcohol or possession or drugs or fraud in driver’s permit or learning permit.

Consecutive convictions on the offender results in addition of license points and sometimes leads to suspension of license. This is usually observed in the occurrence of repeated offences within a time period.  Driver’s license points do not affect one’s driving rights unless many points are accumulated in little time. These license points can be avoided are minimized when the charges against the offender are dismissed, or trail being held in court and declaring accused as not guilty or conviction of a less serious offence. 

Speeding tickets though introduced as a way to introduce order in roads has lead to other ways of crime. This includes bribing the respective officer to not write a speeding ticket and hence keeping the license clear. Though many officers refuse and one may end up being charged for bribery also, there is a minority of officers who do accept to such bribes. Thus a method of law enforcement has itself been manipulated and is a source of crime.