traffic ticket, need advice, improper use of headlights

[vexvelour]

You're too nice. Next time, just let the other drivers get their asses busted.

Besides, it's fun to watch others get pulled over.

PS- The only reason you should be flashing your brights is if you're on a dark road and REALLY can't see [censored], or if it's night and someone in oncoming traffic doesn't have their lights on, to signal that they need to turn them on.

[correia]

How do you live in Jersey and not have a PBA/FOP card?

[odellthurman]

I am a lawyer, and most of the legal advice given in this forum sucks. D10's advice is the best in this thread. Just because you have had a ticket or even if you are a lawyer, advice about how to handle a ticket is going to be jurisdiction-specific. I'm a lawyer in GA, so I can only speculate what might happen in NJ traffic court. Also, traffic courts' handling of tickets may likely vary from court to court, even within a jurisdiction.

Bottom line - When you have a legal problem, your best course of action is going to be to hire a lawyer with a good reputation and with experience handling similar situations. If you can't do that for financial or other reasons, good luck.

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Just because you have had a ticket or even if you are a lawyer, advice about how to handle a ticket is going to be jurisdiction-specific.

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Couldn't agree more, I've gotten plenty of tickets in NY and know how to handle those but I think NJ has some unique laws regarding traffic violations. My rule of thumb, <u>always</u> fight a traffic ticket, especially your first. Odds are good that it will get reduced and cost you less and/or not put points on your license. They are banking on you not going through the trouble of fighting it (I even told a cop that once while he was giving me a ticket since I was about 5 hours away from home and I figured he knew there would be little chance I would fight it, he didn't like that attitude, but I still fought it and got it way reduced...score).

Plus, this looks like it was something that annoyed the cop so he pulled you over to make a point. Maybe you were wrong, but then again, so it jay-walking. This seems to be a minor infraction, and the cop made a point of it so you should make a point to bog-down the legal system a little more and go through the motions. Enjoy, and good luck!

[Warik]

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I just recieved my first ticket this evening, so I figured I might as well try and do some research online to look at my options and possible chances of getting the ticket erased.

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I will give my non-legal-experience &amp; non-law-enforcement-experience opinion on the matter, which may or may not be correct, but will sure sound pretty smart.

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I see the cop there

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Would it have been IMPOSSIBLE for you to NOT know the cop was there? This is important. Read ahead.

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I flash my brights twice at the car.

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You probably know this already, but don't do this again - at least not at night. During the day time if there is only one cop, he has no way of knowing that you warned someone. At night it's blatantly obvious.

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-yes i was guilty i flashed the driver to and only to warn him of the cop,
- is this wrong or illegal?

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Wrong? No... only if the other driver was doing something reckless like driving 80mph in a residential area... or if he was some punk kid driving his rice rocket.

Illegal? Probably. A case could be made for obstruction of justice; however, if the cop didn't know for a FACT that the other driver was breaking the law, then he can't say you were "obstructing justice" since no crime had yet been committed.

Think of it this way.

Friend: "I'm going to kill my wife for cheating on me."
You: "Hey, don't kill your wife. Her lover is a cop and he's hiding in the closet."
Friend: "Ok. Good idea."
Cop: "You have obstructed justice by warning your friend! You are going to jail!"

It's crap. Now if the cop had confirmed that this person was speeding or ran a stop sign and you helped him evade the police, that's a different story.

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-can he prove there was no deer?

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No he can't, which is why I mentioned before that it is important for you to know if it were possible for you not to have seen the cop.

If the cop can say that it was IMPOSSIBLE for you not to have seen him, then he can say that it was more likely that you were warning the other driver. If you can get the judge or jury (I believe it is your right to get a trial by jury. Whether that is to your advantage or not is unknown to me) to believe that you DIDN'T know the cop was there, then the cop CANNOT claim you were trying to warn the driver.

"Warn him of what? I didn't even know the cop was there!"

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- can he prove if i tell the judge i was checking my lights because i had a prob with my idiot lights?

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Don't tell the judge that. You already told the cop your lights were fine.

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the road is wide and no reason to be 25mph

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Irrelevant. =)

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i was flashing my lights not at the dirver but becuase there was a deer in the farm next to the road

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If you are going to fight the ticket, then this sounds to me like your best defense. Just make sure that there is a real possibility that there could be a deer to warn someone about.

Summary:
- Use warning of deer defense. Argue that you did not know cop was there, and therefore could not have been warning anybody about him.
- Find out if requesting trial by jury would be to your advantage. If I were on your jury and you looked respectable, I would vote not guilty even if you admitted to doing it.

Any lawyers out there? Is my advice sound?

Should I become a lawyer? =)

I didn't read your whole post, but I'm pretty sure they do not go to trial over a moving violation that does not involve any injury. It would be pretty silly to even try, he's not in any danger of losing his license or facing civil damages of any sort.

Also, saying you did not know the cop was there would probably go over poorly. How did you see a deer in the woods but not see a cop car parked near a stop sign? I get your point, but probably would go a different route.

[tonypaladino]

Why is everyone keep talking about obstruction of justice? The ticket was for improper use of headlights.

There's a precedent for this very situation. I have no idea if it will apply to your location, but an appeals court has ruled that you are allowed to communicate with other drivers for this purpose. I didn't search very hard, but here's a start:
http://www.tennessean.com/local/arch...41877517.shtml

[Lloyd]

While this was a good find, it's not relevant. The OP was cited for improper use of headlights, not warning others of police presence. Plus, it's a different jurisdiction.

I wasn't referring to obstruction of justice, I was ignoring that part since I figured it was irrelevant. I was just trying to say it's a simple traffic infraction, go to court, plead 'not guilty' and get it reduced for whatever reason OP can come up with. The best excuse, it was OP first infraction.