I had what I felt was a wrongful ticket
 

So I've never had a ticket in my entire life. I understand it happens. I drive home somewhat late every Wednesday because the boys and I do a podcast that night every single Wednesday for the past 2 years. Therefore I understand I'm more of a target on the road being that there's less traffic, and that's fine.

I was leaving Quik Trip in Lenexa, and getting onto a highway to head west towards my house. I was shortly afterwards pulled over by Lenexa PD (In training) to cite me for an illegal wide turn. I have driven the same way since I was 16 years old. Never once had an issue with the way I turned. Anyways they pulled me over and accused me of also not using my turn signal which also added to my "illegal lane change". I've been furious and I requested the video evidence which I paid $35 for. Of course the evidence shows nothing of the actual violation that they sent me. Only the actual stop of my vehicle. I also noticed on my police report they wrote down my wrong address and as well as the wrong date of the stop. The said June 7th instead of July. I don't know if those things matter or not.

So anyways my question is, as I believe this is a bogus claim by these officers, what's the best options to win on this ticket? Those of you with experience I'm curious of your thoughts. The video here really makes no difference but I'm posting it here anyways. And it's extremely boring past the stopping point.

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I don't know how to help you really. I once went into the prosecutors office. it was 20 years ago. But I was given a parking ticket for some bullshit about parking in front of a fire hydrant when this particular hydrant was all the way up in someone's yard behind a damn tree. I brought a pen and paper and drew him the picture of where the hydrant was and he said "how about I reduce the fine to $1?" and I said deal.

I did the same thing once with a ticket. I went to the prosecutors office and showed them the evidence I had that the ticket was not justified and they just dropped it completely. This was many years ago. If I recall the prosecutors office had some kind of "office hours" where you could show up an talk to one of the prosecutors. Check with your court. If you do talk to a prosecutor, you may want to politely point out that you requested and paid for the video evidence which they failed to provide. You may want to suggest that the actual video evidence of the violation could have been spoiled by the state and it would would have shown your innocence. If video evidence existed and was lost or destroyed somehow, You can ask the court to assume it backed your version of events.

I'm battling this ticket fwiw. So any advice is appreciated.

Hell yeah as you should battle it. From the video sure looked nothing wrong merging so you say it was before that and they didn't provide the evidence I've always heard innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. So the proof is on them to provide and it looks like they failed.


Good luck.

Most people say that if you go see the prosecutor, if it's a simple issue, 99% of the time they'll drop it down to a non moving violation or just drop it completely because they don't want to be in traffic court all day for a bunch of non-serious violations. Never tested it out since I haven't got a ticket in about a decade, but it makes sense.

Jungle Law

If you want to get out of the ticket and the points that go along with it, just hire a traffic attorney. Unfortunately it will probably cost as much as the paying the fine for the ticket would.

Cop was hoping to get you for something more serious. So used the wide turn as a fabricated reason to pull you over.

I asked a judge to reduce a ticket once, She told me to **** off.

I have a similar story.
If you have a clean record, talking to the prosecuting attorney isn't a bad start.

I fought a bogus ticket in Grandview a few years ago and it was pretty obvious from the start that the judge was never going to take my word over the cops. ****ing thieves.

Play their games. Next time you get pulled over. Make sure the officer notices you picking your nose before hand them your license. Maybe even slap a juicy one right on top. By accident of course. Drive past by an officer while driving? Put that booger picker up in it's cache and I bet your interactions with officers will become less often and with them having less time spent on you.

I've gotten out of around 6-7 speeding tickets by paying a lawyer $100 and the ticket is reduced to "defective equipment". It goes off your record in 30 days if you pay the court costs, around $225.

Quite the dodge that lawyers built into the law for themselves. But, I'm not complaining.

I've gotten two tickets over the past 25 years, both when I was out of state driving a vehicle with out of state plates. In one case it was completely a setup (Wyoming - got me on the first couple of days of a new law and I was clearly being used for practice), and in the other case I was speeding, albeit not hugely, on a road by myself late at night (Maine). In the second case I think I was 12 miles over, so yeah, I was guilty, but the highway patrolman was pretty rude and pulled me over in an unsafe manner.

In both cases, I was incensed. Angry. Aggrieved. I am a good safe driver. In both cases I wrote compelling and indignant letters stating precisely why, I, an excellent driver and top-notch citizen, was undeserving of this treatment and that the ticket should be destroyed to prevent embarrassment to their department. Then I deleted the letters and paid the tickets because there was no way in the world that fighting the ticket would result in anything but more costs for me.