$1700 Fine And 6 Month Suspension ...yippee

[Wacky Dee]

straight from a NSW traffic laywers mouth (http://www.mccofnsw.org.au/a/241.html):

Q) Is there a risk of taking an offence to court and having the penalty increased?

That is a risk in some cases, though by and large I have never seen penalties increased. The courts are pretty good that way.

and .. http://trafficlaw.com.au/legal.advice.html

14. If I plead not guilty, won't I just make the police and the Magistrate angry and make matters worse?

No. Where licence loss is mandatory, pleading guilty will not improve things at all. Unless there is a good chance of going to prison, it can't get much worse. The police are cool and never get angry with people who plead not guilty. Magistrates preside over defended cases almost every day and seem to cope with the stress fairly well.

[msnismo]

^^

Take that advice by all means... but I have personally seen two charges with different results based on court location and judge - same charge two different outcomes.. both were heard within 2 weeks of each other also.

One was 18 months loss of license and $2K fine, the other 3 years loss of license and $1500 fine. One was Gosford court the other was Hornsby. Identical charges, identical driving records give or take one minor offense.. only difference was the age. One was a p plater and 20 years old and the other was fully licensed and 27 years old....

And the 27 year old at Hornsby court received the 3 year suspension, NOT the P plater... so don't assume you are not going to get a worse penalty.

If you have a day off, go to the court house (preferably the one you would end up attending) and sit through a day of hearings (Tuesdays from memory but not quite sure, could be Thursday's? ), take note of the driving offense and the penalty the magistrate hands out... go back and check the minimums and maximums... I would put money on it that they are not all given the minimum sentence relevant to the charge.

The magistrate can dish out what ever they want within those guidelines... get a magistrate in an area with alot of high speed fatalities and your sure to cop the higher end of the scale.... if he see's people fighting speeding charges all day, you more than likely should of taken the original penalty.

Unfortunately no one can determine with out a doubt that you won't be worse off fighting this in court. This is a decision you would have to make and then cross your fingers that you come out better off.

I have heard that fighting the accuracy of the radar/laser is a costly exercise also... pretty sure even if you win, the lawyer representing you is the only real winner!!!!

Technicalities can work , don't get me wrong as I have seen it accomplished... but you have to be very lucky to find a cop that has f**ked up procedures to allow you a loop hole to avoid being accountable for the charge.

Regardless of everything if you plead not guilty - they are not about to hand your license back whilst fighting the charge. The 6 months will be up before you are finished and in the end you will just have spent more on lawyers than the original fine. Feel free to tell me to shut up... but after personally witnessing this on several occasions... I am a firm believer of copping it on the chin as it ends up being cheaper and easier in the long run. (unless its blatantly obvious you are wrongly charged of course, or there is a blatant procedural error that you know you can win quickly)

[Kujotk]

hey its not that bad, i used to work with a guy who lost his license for 24 years and a $13 000 fine lol. He had to pay his fine in monthly installments and the idiot still used to drive to work if no one was able to take him to work.

Then he stole an RR from tassie and used a stolen bike to get to and from work....... go figure, these were the types of people i used to work with when i used to sell dirt bikes lol.

So in retrospect 6 months and 1.7k fine arnt that bad to 24 years and 13k

[Swiper the Fox]

hey its not that bad, i used to work with a guy who lost his license for 24 years and a $13 000 fine lol. He had to pay his fine in monthly installments and the idiot still used to drive to work if no one was able to take him to work.

Then he stole an RR from tassie and used a stolen bike to get to and from work....... go figure, these were the types of people i used to work with when i used to sell dirt bikes lol.

So in retrospect 6 months and 1.7k fine arnt that bad to 24 years and 13k

yeah i have a mate who is suspended from driving/riding for 25 years...he is a habitual line stepper. When he needs transport he rides his Suzuki Hyabusa road bike...no plate on it. One day the cops saw him at the hardware shop with me and said..G'day Mick, i saw you on your bike the other day...but you were too fast for us...your lucky we couldn't catch you as you would have went away for a while if we did.

[Wacky Dee]

Anna, you say you witnessed all these things, how ? I'm not trying to be a smartarse and I do seem to recall you mentioning that your hubby is a solicitor, but seriously how? Do you go to court and observe these proceedings ? I don't imagine your hubby would bore you with stories from work about speeding fines.

Do you know the driving record or the exact circumstances of those 2 fellas you mentioned? Maybe the guy that copped the 3 year suspension was classed 'habitual offender' ie. lost his licence more than 2 times before. Maybe he was being a smartass in court or had a criminal history.

I've only ever had ONE speeding fine in 15 years of driving and that was in May 2008 (15 over the limit) and a no right turn fine. Other than that, clean. So why would any magistrate try and make my life miserable ?

Quite honestly, to me it sounds like you ARE the po-po or are married to a copper. I'm yet to find any evidence whatsoever that magistrates impose heavy penalties for simply taking a matter to court.

I do intend to go to a few court hearings and see what sort of punishments the magistrates dish out but thanks for the tip anyway.

For the record, yes I've learnt my lesson and no I'm not trying to outsmart the system. It's my understanding that ONLY if I plead NOT GUILTY will I have a chance to actually see the police evidence. For all I know they HAVE NO evidence. Maybe they didn't catch any of it on video due to their car being perpendicular to road and backed up all the way inside the bushes. I just can't see how they could have taken a video or how being parked at a 45 degree angle (their car's rear pretty much climbed a wall at 45deg angle) i would fall within their own guidelines for using LIDAR.

[MBS206]

The max financial fine the magistrate can give me is $2200 which is f**k all more than the $1744 I'd have to pay anyway. So where do you get YOUR information from ?

Sure if you think you're a sickunt and can go to court and blame everyone and be an arrogant prick about it and cuss at the popop and judge, I can see how the magistrate might impose a higher fine/suspension. But their job is to be objective not to side with police from the get go and dish out unreasonable punishments to otherwise law abiding citizens. It's not like I'm a "habitual offender" or like I have a criminal history. If the magistrate is an absolute twat there's always automatic appeal to higher courts which can roll back the suspension/fine to the original if they find the magistrate was unreasonable.

So once again, where do you get your info from ? I haven't been living in a cave and it's the same 'urban myth' I've heard from many people, none of which ever had ANY dealings with these matters whatsoever eg. my dad, my brother all of whome just reckon "please guilty or they're gonna rip you a new one" like the system is set up to f**k with normal people who find themselves in a difficult situation.

I get my info from:

A neighbour who's a highway cop,

My best mates step brother, who's also in with the force,

And another family friend, who's an ex highway copper

[Wacky Dee]

yeah OK mate, you know THREE cops 2 of whome are highway cops. I bet the rest of SAU members combined don't know as many cops combined. Sorry but I don't buy that BS for a second. And what would a copper say anyway ? Oh yeah we f**k up a lot of our prosecution cases, so if you ever get suspended go for it mate! Or more likely the "We are invincible and you're gonna get raped if you f**k with us" type of attitude.

Hah, when I spoke to a cop on the phone the other day just inquiring about some details about the fine the moron on the other end tried to intimidate me with the same bullshi "you've got no chance if you wanna take this to court mate <copper x> is a solid operator rah rah". We shall see.

My next goal is to get my hands on the summons and charges so that I know what sort of LIDAR they used. Then i'm gonna try and dig up the user's manual / police guidelines. Just from reading various web site SO FAR (which is only a few hours) I can tell you that they've most likely f**ked up more than one guideline for using Lidar. These guidelines are there to ensure accuracy of the devices. Without accuracy the results are worthless and the magistrate might just agree with me. There's also a good chance their in car video is useless due to where/how they parked their car in really dense bushes and it being a dark moonless night. Also by the way they started appearing out of the bushes just as I was passing them can only mean they were both sitting on their asses INSIDE the car not out in the bushes. So many things and i've only just started preparing.

[msnismo]

Anna, you say you witnessed all these things, how ? I'm not trying to be a smartarse and I do seem to recall you mentioning that your hubby is a solicitor, but seriously how? Do you go to court and observe these proceedings ? I don't imagine your hubby would bore you with stories from work about speeding fines.

Do you know the driving record or the exact circumstances of those 2 fellas you mentioned? Maybe the guy that copped the 3 year suspension was classed 'habitual offender' ie. lost his licence more than 2 times before. Maybe he was being a smartass in court or had a criminal history.

I've only ever had ONE speeding fine in 15 years of driving and that was in May 2008 (15 over the limit) and a no right turn fine. Other than that, clean. So why would any magistrate try and make my life miserable ?

Quite honestly, to me it sounds like you ARE the po-po or are married to a copper. I'm yet to find any evidence whatsoever that magistrates impose heavy penalties for simply taking a matter to court.

I do intend to go to a few court hearings and see what sort of punishments the magistrates dish out but thanks for the tip anyway.

For the record, yes I've learnt my lesson and no I'm not trying to outsmart the system. It's my understanding that ONLY if I plead NOT GUILTY will I have a chance to actually see the police evidence. For all I know they HAVE NO evidence. Maybe they didn't catch any of it on video due to their car being perpendicular to road and backed up all the way inside the bushes. I just can't see how they could have taken a video or how being parked at a 45 degree angle (their car's rear pretty much climbed a wall at 45deg angle) i would fall within their own guidelines for using LIDAR.

Actually my other half is head mechanic for a race team.. not a solicitor.. He was the one that lost his license for 3 years.. so yes I sat through many court dates listening to many others get heard prior to his. It was a 9 month process and he plead guilty as advised by his lawyer. However he was given a court appearance slip so the situation is different as he did not elect to take his to court.

He has lost his license once previously, but due to the RTA and police stuffing up his record, yes have the proof but made no difference to the magistrate (thats another long story). He hadn't been booked for 4 years prior to this incident.... by no means is his driving record good, but it spands 10 years (last four are clean) and the majority of demerit point losses were silly young driver type offences such as neg driving (accidents and burnouts etc)

My friend on the coast, lost his for the 18 months... as his charge was the same as my other half I went for support obviously and to see how bad his sentence was going to be knowing that the central coast magistrate was going to be more lenient than the Hornsby magistrate - wide known fact.. go to Hornsby for a traffic offence and you are likely to be raped over the coals. Most good traffic lawyers try to have the hearings moved from this location to another court.

So yes, I know both personally, I have seen both driving records side by side ( the younger having one more loss of license than my other half due to being on P plates and less points), and sat through many of the court appearances relating to both people. And heard many unlucky others in the process. Some people did come off better, but the majority didn't, ending with either a longer suspension and reduced fine or a higher fine and the same suspension.

I am not a cop (feel free to ask around), but my uncle was head of a highway patrol section till he retired a few years ago.. so I do have some insight. I have a family member that is a lawyer (although not specialising in traffic) and an ex that was also.

I am not saying learn your lesson or anything, it's not my place and I have done exactly what you have been caught for as has probably every other person on these forums. I was just trying to convey that alot of the time fighting it is pointless unless there is solid no question proof that they shouldn't of booked you. Nor is trying to get out of the suspension a bad thing, Im sure everyone that loses their license looks for a way out.. a technicality is a technicality and if there is one there then USE IT!!!

If you think that there is no way that they have it on video (no idea as I haven't seen the inside of a HWP car in a few years) then challenge it especially if you can recall other cars coming up behind you rapidly... and you are certain that they have the speed wrong. Their proof at the moment seems to be the fact that they showed you the reading of the speed detected. If you acknowledged that this was the speed you were travelling to the officer at the time then it will be in the fact statement and brief of evidence - but I am assuming that you didn't based on the fact that you want to fight it.

Write down all your facts that you remember, go and see a traffic lawyer and make a decision from there. Everyone will tell you their experience, but at the end of the day everyones is different. Hopefully you fight it, win and come back and share the good news

[oweban]

I get this horrible feeling they'll hear "Nissan Skyline" and just throw maximum penalty... Everything being overhyped and all, regardless of age or record. "Oh look, we got another 'hoon' off the road, isn't our system effective!"

[reaper]

I get this horrible feeling they'll hear "Nissan Skyline" and just throw maximum penalty... Everything being overhyped and all, regardless of age or record. "Oh look, we got another 'hoon' off the road, isn't our system effective!"

Funny you mention that

When I was in court for a speeding matter a while ago the judge heard I had a Nissan and said "Its not a Skyline is it?". Now the voice he said it in wasn't kind or gentle it sounded like he was ready to give me the maximum penalty. Luckily it was a silvia so he relaxed after that.

[nsdq]

From what I read your best bet would be to definitely pay the fine, but contest the license suspension in court. Since you have a clean record, say you need your car for work and the judge may give you some leniency. That's like saying I admit breaking the law and have learned my lesson but i still need my car to do everyday stuff and live.

Personally I hate how cops pull people over for trivial bullshit like breaking road rules. and they're everywhere in NSW now. Instead of putting resources into looking for my stolen 34, they use up all their time setting up lidars and fining people for no right turns. It should be illegal for cops to fine you unless they have returned whatever it is that was stolen from you. that's my rant for the day

Sincerely hope things go well for you in court mate.

[MBS206]

yeah OK mate, you know THREE cops 2 of whome are highway cops. I bet the rest of SAU members combined don't know as many cops combined. Sorry but I don't buy that BS for a second. And what would a copper say anyway ? Oh yeah we f**k up a lot of our prosecution cases, so if you ever get suspended go for it mate! Or more likely the "We are invincible and you're gonna get raped if you f**k with us" type of attitude.

Hah, when I spoke to a cop on the phone the other day just inquiring about some details about the fine the moron on the other end tried to intimidate me with the same bullshi "you've got no chance if you wanna take this to court mate <copper x> is a solid operator rah rah". We shall see.

My next goal is to get my hands on the summons and charges so that I know what sort of LIDAR they used. Then i'm gonna try and dig up the user's manual / police guidelines. Just from reading various web site SO FAR (which is only a few hours) I can tell you that they've most likely f**ked up more than one guideline for using Lidar. These guidelines are there to ensure accuracy of the devices. Without accuracy the results are worthless and the magistrate might just agree with me. There's also a good chance their in car video is useless due to where/how they parked their car in really dense bushes and it being a dark moonless night. Also by the way they started appearing out of the bushes just as I was passing them can only mean they were both sitting on their asses INSIDE the car not out in the bushes. So many things and i've only just started preparing.

No, I know 2 coppers (One is living across the road, and funnily enough, his father and his uncle in law are both coppers too, but I don't talk to them) another is a best mates step brother. The other is retired for 10 odd years...

And funnily enough, they all actually say the same thing, they couldn't be assed going to court, as 9 out of 10 of the cases they do end up in court over, end up being settled 10 minutes before the hearing starts... After they've sat for 8 out of 12 hours of their shift in the court room.

Also, the in car video, it doesn't HAVE to pick you up. There is no RULES that it has to show everything. It is there as extra evidence if they want to use it. They don't have to.

As Anna said earlier, go and sit through a few of these court hearings.

You'll find one HUGE thing, all of the information on the LIDAR and how to use it etc, is a guideline. It is not a law, an act or any other regulation, therefore, no matter how many guidelines they broke, you're still not going to be able to use it as a technicality.

Edit: When you get to the point of being bent over by the law, or at the least, still having to deal with exactly what you have now, plus court costs etc, I will be there laughing...

[EJD001]

Personally I hate how cops pull people over for trivial bullshit like breaking road rules.

So the road rules are there to be broken?? WTF

Listen to ya self , the reason there are road rules to begin with is to keep everyone on our roads safe.

Sure ppl speed here and there.. if u decide to do it, then u run the risk of getting caught.. u get caught u pay the price and the penalty

Sure plead with the court (if it gets to that) that u need your licence for work, No one out there wants u too loose your job over it, people just need to be aware of the consequences to their actions..

[R34Liner]

So the road rules are there to be broken?? WTF

Listen to ya self , the reason there are road rules to begin with is to keep everyone on our roads safe.

Sure ppl speed here and there.. if u decide to do it, then u run the risk of getting caught.. u get caught u pay the price and the penalty

Sure plead with the court (if it gets to that) that u need your licence for work, No one out there wants u too loose your job over it, people just need to be aware of the consequences to their actions..

ahah im pretty sure he meant that in retrospect to him getting his R34 stolen...i hope

they should have a whole bloody unit/devision (more so then wtvr they have now) dedicated to catching those f***ers

anyway back to the guy who started this thread - I'm reading through and there are some people giving you advice and experience and your just throwing it back in there face?

yeah OK mate, you know THREE cops 2 of whome are highway cops. I bet the rest of SAU members combined don't know as many cops combined. Sorry but I don't buy that BS for a second.

Who the F*** do you think you are mate? get your head out of your arse for a second and stop being an absolute prick, you F***ed up, you asked for help. sure there are a few guys that will wave their finger at you for what you did but the rest of us are trying to help you out, but responses like the one above are BS, not what we are saying to help you!

I will wish you luck in your court case because as mentioned above you shouldn't risk your job etc, but i will say that you don't deserve any of our advice if your going to chuck it back in our faces.

[GTR-N1]

...and btw, solicitors state that www.aussiespeedingfines.com has a lot of legal faux pas in its assertions...

...and it's a money-making operation.

[FloydWestwood]

Good points Aron and Terry.

[Wacky Dee]

Who the F*** do you think you are mate? get your head out of your arse for a second and stop being an absolute prick, you F***ed up, you asked for help. sure there are a few guys that will wave their finger at you for what you did but the rest of us are trying to help you out, but responses like the one above are BS, not what we are saying to help you!

You are trying to help me ? YOU ? Let me quote your only contribution.

That excuse is as stable as your concept of rational thought 'mate'

That is the ONLY thing you've said this whole time. I don't see how a smartarse remark is helping anyone, let alone a guy who's for the first time found himself in trouble with the law and lost his licence for 6 months. As for the 'who the f**k do I think I am" I am the thread starter and there are obviously a lot of well intentioned people who're giving advice and sharing their experiences (thanks Anna) but there are also morons like you and that other guy mbs206 who's only contribution was to try and upset me even more with a bunch of nonsense and personal attacks. So changing your story now mbs206? What do you think it means when 9 out of 10 court cases are settled before the hearing? f**king moron.

And Terry yes I am aware and I've actually bought the ebook (and got the refund after reading through it) - it does have some helpful points BUT overall and primarily the '3 letters to write' that it's all about really is nothing but a bunch of bs.

I hadn't posted here because I'm still upset over this whole thing and talking about it just makes it worse. So I'm not going to post anymore about what I'm going to do here.

[l_uk3y]

Personally id go to a solicitors office (pref one with experience on traffic crimes) and get their advice on what your chances are! Unless they messed up the paperwork, or when they show the video you were really only doing 115 or less (how clear is video of accurately displaying speed) then it would take a massive blunder by them in court for you to win.

On the second note. They were doing 80kmh, you "allegedly overtook at 140kmh", I'm sure you woulda had them by 2 lengths before you hit 110. So I'm sure that would show on the video as well whether you instantly slowed after overtaking or kept it going for a bit afterward which may go with or against you in court.

Good Luck with it.

Luke

[Wacky Dee]

yeah I'm gonna talk to the trafficlaw.com.au barrister once I get the charges/summons ... it's only $250 for his opinion on whether it's worth fighting it in court and I think that's all he does (fight traffic charges in court that is). To get a lawyer to rep me in court would cost $2-3k without any expert testimony .. or guarantees. If I can get up to speed in how to effectively represent myself I'll do that (eg. how to address magistrate, prosecutor, present evidence, question witnesses etc without making a fool of myself) as well as if I can get my hands on the HWP guidelines for Lidar, previous supreme court cases where charges were dismissed etc

Whoever mentioned to just pay the fine and plead with magistrate ... well that doesn't work from what I've read. As soon as you pay the fine you basically admit guilt and a conviction is recorded and suspension in place. The magistrate can't overrule the suspension at all unless the case is dismissed ie. found not guilty in court. Thanks Luke appreciate it.

[MBS206]

You are trying to help me ? YOU ? Let me quote your only contribution.

That is the ONLY thing you've said this whole time. I don't see how a smartarse remark is helping anyone, let alone a guy who's for the first time found himself in trouble with the law and lost his licence for 6 months. As for the 'who the f**k do I think I am" I am the thread starter and there are obviously a lot of well intentioned people who're giving advice and sharing their experiences (thanks Anna) but there are also morons like you and that other guy mbs206 who's only contribution was to try and upset me even more with a bunch of nonsense and personal attacks. So changing your story now mbs206? What do you think it means when 9 out of 10 court cases are settled before the hearing? f**king moron.

And Terry yes I am aware and I've actually bought the ebook (and got the refund after reading through it) - it does have some helpful points BUT overall and primarily the '3 letters to write' that it's all about really is nothing but a bunch of bs.

I hadn't posted here because I'm still upset over this whole thing and talking about it just makes it worse. So I'm not going to post anymore about what I'm going to do here.

Not changing at all, there experiences range from assault, to rape, to road incidents.

Most cases that actually go to court for road stuff are more your neg driving charges, of which it isn't State VS Person, it ends up being State and Person VS Person.

And they're normally because they plead guilty and take some form of offer. MORON.

You have the offer in front of you. Take it or try fight it.

As to personal attacks. I didn't start it. You started claiming how it must be all bullshit.

PS: Been in your shoes, I got out of it in a very lucky manner before the fine became that high... I know what it feels like... (Oh, and that was my first and only ticket too, apart from a single defect notice)

Edit: And just so you know Wacky, even if you do have the whole fine dismissed, the court can't over rule the points that are recorded on your licence.