The_quorum

Well I went to court to deal with my speeding ticket.
Citation for a 31 in a 25. I get there at 10am per the summons. No police officer! so I'm thinking, AWESOME, I'll plead not-guilty, case closed end of story. Well 11:00 rolls around, I'm still not called yet, still no police officer, cool...12:00...I'm still not called, court breaks for lunch...I check w/ the bailiff to make sure I hadn't been missed somehow. No such luck, come back at 1:00, no officer still, I'm thinking I have it made. New dockett...2:00 rolls around, and guess who walks in: The police officer.
He sees me, nods at the bailiff, smiles at me, proceeds to sit down next to me...pulls out a folder, opens it, and sets it down on the bench between us where I can clearly see it and slowly pages through it (as if he's reviewing it): training certicicate for the radar unit, calibration certificate, weather report, photo of the street he stopped me on w/ the sign showing 25mph limit, notes on the stop (mine) including the fact that he actually clocked me at 41mph...This was not good! and I'll be damned, but two minutes later, my name is called!!!! He had to have known when I was going to be called!

So I did the guilty w/ explanation plea, daughter had a nosebleed (which she did), I wasn't paying attention...blah, blah, blah...
$60 in court costs/fines...Guilty w/ Probation before judgement due to clean driving history...at least there are no points involved.

Now what I want to know is how long (in MD) do I have to keep my nose clean to have it fall off my record? and is it REALLY off my record? I know the insurance company should not be able to see it, but in the future can the court or police see if I had a PBJ even after it expires??

MaineI30

I figured out something funky up here. While most ACTUAL OFFENSES are deleted from your driving record after FIVE years, the CUMULATIVE COUNT shows up for much longer. For example, if a cop runs your license, he gets the reports of your violations of the last 5 years "speeding 55/45 in MArch 2000, speeding 80/65 May 1998" etc. etc... But they also get a CUMULATIVE count of what may be your whole history. Like "2 suspensions, 8 convictions" which in some states might be lifetime history. This is wrong, but it's going on because the DMV computers tell the dispatchers this so they pass it on to the field. Insurance companies only look back 5 years in most states.. but it stinks that a cop who is going to make a decision whether or not to cite you is hearing things that may be 10 or more years old.

The_quorum

So if I've got this Probation before judgement, and I keep my nose clean for 6 months (or however long it is) and it "dissapears", there is still "1-conviction" listed in my driving history? That sucks if it's the case.

Sonic

39 months in NYS, 10 years for DWIs.

UMD_MaxSE

iTrader: (1)

man, I have a court date in two weeks for a speeding ticket I got on 270. 82 in a 55 I hope I get probation before judgement also since this is my first ticket ever in my 8 years of driving....

MaineI30

I don't know how it works in MD. I know that is true in ME. I have several friends in law enforcement and they told me. In fact, they showed me by pulling me up on their computer. It showed one speeding ticket. That's all I've gotten in the last 5 years. But at the bottom it said like:

4 suspensions, 10 convictions

or something like that (I was a really dumb kid...)

NYCe MaXiMa

iTrader: (9)

Anyone know if the license record that the cop looks at show if I received tickets but fought them off in court? Do they see tickets which were dismissed?

pmar

With a DWI in the state of New York, you kiss the premium (higher-quality less expensive) companies good-bye. They will not insure you. But you can turn to the AIG's and the Progressives after 39 months. Imagine 100% surcharge on liability for over 3 years, forget about collision. In a sense 10 year's in unjust--people pay a grand to AIG while their married buddies could be doing like $525 with the Travelers, interesting huh?

But then the 2nd part of the question, how long until the insurance company doesn't find out? That is so ironic, because so many on this board are techies. That's like saying, I deleted all my incriminating email, how long can the exchange administrator continue to view it? haha you know the answer fellas, don't tell me you never looked while you were the administrator. We all know "delete" is not that at all at the server. Why in the world would law enforcement purge or seal records?

Pmp-n8a

has anyone had probation before judgement in NYS?

Jeff92se

iTrader: (82)

You show up at 10:00am and your case gets called at 2:00 pm?? Damn that sucks. Usually they have roll call and then call the people alphabetically. It's really clear that the judge just waited until the officer showed up.

The_quorum

I'm thinking someone had to know because he nodded at the bailiff when he walked in...like "I'm here...you can call him now" Definitely a set-up.

It was really entertaining to watch the other people go up there though...One father went to court for his son's ticket, Judge issued a bench warrant. Another guy who spoke no english (used the court translator) had been arrested for having no licence and driving a car that didn't belong to him, AND wasn't registered. The judge had the decency to realize that he was probably an illegal, and skirted around a lot of things...gave him a PBJ too with a STERN warning that more serious conciquences if he was caught again. He seemed to understand. Another guy got nailed by a red-light camera, claimed he had stopped, and the judge looked at him and said: "Sir, your car is clearly photographed in these 4 pictures going throught the intersection...AND the radar has you clocked at 77mph going through it...are you sure you want to tell me you stopped?" He changed his plea to guilty, and he got a PBJ too... Overall, I'd have to say she was a pretty lenient judge.

UMD_MaxSE

iTrader: (1)

man, I hope I get a judge like that! What county's jurisdiction were you in? My case is in rockville.....

The_quorum

I had to go to Hyattsville since I was stopped in PG county.

Here are a few links I used for research. Good luck.

http://mlis.state.md.us/cgi-win/web_...e?gtr&21-801.1

http://www.marylandlaws.com/traffic.html

http://www.sha.state.md.us/oots/speedlimits3.htm

http://jesbeard.com/29ab.htm

pmar

I think you could have simply mailed the ticket in guilty with an explanation and achieved the same result. Why spend 4 hours on a very small matter. Anybody could do 31 in a 25, there's nothing "reckless" about it, nobody would throw the book at anyone for such a minor offense. Sometimes I see stuff in the workplace that's similar in nature, nobody wants to own up when a project goes bad they all deny that they had anything to do with the missed deadline etc, but everyone kinda knows who did what. I got 2 tickets in 10 months after being clean since I started to drive. Nothing personal, I paid both fines which were the standard $94. No insurance rate increase. If there were, I'd pay it. No biggie.

The_quorum

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pmar
[B]

I think you could have simply mailed the ticket in guilty with an explanation and achieved the same result.



I'm with you totally in that if I knew for sure that there would be no points involved w/ mailing it in, I would have done so. Sort of like for the red-light cameras; no points involved there (apparently those are considered Civil violations in MD). However, everyone I talked to said that by mailing it in and saying I was guilty (even w/ explanation), I was almost guaranteed the points. Aside from the insurance thing, I'm in a job where the company won't let me have more than 4 points in a rolling 5 year period, if you think about it, that's an allowance for less than 1 MINOR conviction/year. Now granted, I've got a clean (up until now) record, but I figure odds are that driving as many miles as I do per year (I drove 47k last year) the odds are stacked against me that I'll get stopped again, and I'd just assume make sure that anything that can be taken care of is. But the waste of my time was worth the gamble that the officer woudn't show; and despite the fact that he did, I take pleasure knowing that I made him take time from his day to drive to Hyattsville for me ( I was the only one on his list). My biggest beef w/ the situation was that I could have been afforded the courtesy of a notice saying not to come in until after lunch.

MaineI30

Are not 99% of moving violations in MD considered civil violations?


Yeh man I agree. That stinks.

pmar

In NYS, and I know because of buddies who could not stop pushing their luck in college, a "DWI" is a criminal offense. Nobody gets that their first time, instead, they get "DWAI" which means "adversely intoxicated." The latter is like a moving violation, an infraction. They're basically all the same: parking tickets, disorderly contact, littering, speeding tickets. The DWI is the first point where it is criminal, and again, in NYS, you would normally only get that upon the 2nd offense. You'd be surprised how very ordinary decent people wind up scr**** because of 2 offenses in less than 5 years. Add it up and in the worst case it could be 20 years that the insurance companies look back, but more realistically about 16.

What is it about boys/machines/speed? I had once wanted to see if the Max could really do 135, but when I got up to 120 the car didn't feel too good and there wasn't much more decent road--first time/last time.

Last night we were coming home from AC and on the expressway southbound at 3:30 am there was an accident with 10 troopers and 3 fire engines. All along the route there are yellow signs saying "Drive Safely." But with all the shore traffic and gamblers there are deaths every year without fail. The road is too straight I suppose and it tempts people to open it up. A guy at work on Friday who was headed for the shore said he couldn't wait to test out his new car which I think is limited to 156 mph (has some crazy hp like 370 or something--and keep in mind this guy is almost 60). He said it was sweet at 125 mph--I was thinking about him when I saw the accident.