Somerville Traffic Court

[axedmoon.livejournal.com]

Has anyone ever had experience with contesting a ticket? Any advice?

Comments

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

In the words of Ivan Drago: You will lose

[ringrose.livejournal.com]

Depends on if you have a basis for contesting it.
For example, I know someone who got a street sweeping ticket issued at 12:05, when they moved the car at 12:15 and the street sweeper doesn't come by until morning, tossed.
Or if you catch the cop issuing a parking ticket for that kind of situation they can't revoke the ticket, but they can make the note "moved before sweep" or "moved immediately" on the ticket. That makes it more likely to be voided. It's just that the cop isn't allowed to stop the process once he or she begins making the ticket.

[axedmoon.livejournal.com]

Mine is in regards of a moving violation. I stopped at a stop sign and entered the rotary from Warner St, and a cop almost hit me. He pulled me over and said I didn't yield to him and that I didn't stop at the sign. My friend and I contested (I was in the rotary first, he sped through from the other side) so he dropped the yield charge, but the stop sign violation remains. It's crapshute.

[enveri.livejournal.com]

We successfully contested a street sweeping ticket because the sign we were parked under said street sweeping ran through 11/30, not 12/31. We took a photo and the city said 'Well. You were wrong, but we'll let it go this time.'

Not our fault they missed a sign (we had just moved, and never parked under the other signs, so had no idea they were different), and they were really bitchy about it, but we got it dropped.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

'Well. You were wrong, but we'll let it go this time.'

This is their standard response, even when it is clear the city was wrong.

They did this to someone who was ticketed before the ticket window opened in a snow emergency a few years back.

It's obviously corrupt, but how does one fight it?

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I think calling it corrupt is pushing it. It's more like city employees who develop a small sense of self and their only joy is inflicting their tiny little bureaucratic power upon others.

OK, corrupt works.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I call it corrupt - if it was not legal for the ticket to be issued (in the case of the snow parking one years ago), but they say they did nothing wrong, in order to prevent it from being used as precedent, they are trying to preserve their ability to ticket people unlawfully. Thus, it's corrupt.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it's so they never set any precedent of having certain types of tickets overturned. That way, no one can ever say ,"But you said you were wrong about my friend's ticket." Each case is considered individual.