Rep Power: 771

So im driving the girlfriend home last night when i see cherries come out of no where, i pull over and the cop approaches me and asks the usual questions, he then says "I have to give you a ticket so you choose which one". He offers me changing lanes without signalling, going through an intersection without siganlling or uneccessary noise(exhaust). He then tells me there are points with the signal tickets casue they are mocing violations. After this he tells me not to fight it cause he has a good case with decent evidence. What do i do, fight it or pay.I did infact signal going into the left turn lane and my signal clicked off when i was waiting for the cars to clear the intersection. I do have exhaust on my car but im wasn't driving like an whatsoever. I was in residential at 11pm.

 
Rep Power: 774

i'm assuming u took the exhaust ticket.

fight it, put ur stock pipe on for a court date. take photos or a sound bite and have a mechanic sign off that ur exhaust is infact NOT excessive noise.

or better yet, if u told the cop something to the effect of : "sorry officer, my exhaust is broken, i'm taking it to the shop on tuesday" just have the mechanic sign a letter stating he did fix ur car (even if he didn't). take a photo and bring it to court.

u should get it dropped. i believe most exhaust tickets r dropped anyhow.

 
Rep Power: 773

A mechanic can not say if a muffler makes excessive noise or not, the mechanic was not at the location of the stop (type of traffic around, what drew the officer's attention to the vehicle etc...)

A mechanic would be able to say the car has a exhaust system that meets standards. Hence this would be a good defense for "IMPROPER MUFFLER" charge. 99% of officers would not know if the muffler actually works properly and would have to prove otherwise.

The offense of unnecessary noise is a much different charge. The officer must have some history to the offence, meaning he/she heard a loud and unusual noise above the regular traffic in the area, identified the vehicle as it approached due to the unusually excessive noise or when it accelerated. Then a good officer will even give evidence of hearing the vehicle even after the traffic stop, which collaborates the stop as well.
For more perspective....my 5 yr old nephew was in the car a couple of weeks ago, heard a car ahead of us, one lane over....and said "that car there is loud"....with no surprise it was unusually loud over the other cars waiting at the light....so if a 5yr old can notice this....surely a police officer can.....

but on the same token.......why are 90% of Harley owners not charged?

For a mechanic to sign off on something without work being done is very risky...jeopardizing losing his mechanic's licence?

 
Rep Power: 771

The reason that im sketchy about fighting it is because he told me "its in my notes that there were two other moving violations involved so if you go to court i have a good case against you". i went to the court house at hensall circle yesterday and they arent taking court dates and some other stuff so nothing has been done yet. I know i can fight it, i know about taking pictures of exhaust on and off the car but i just dont want to go to court and have him start whining about anything else. The only thing that pisses me off is the fact that i was actually doing the speed limit and in a high gear at less then 2000rpm's and he is trying to tell me that with the cruiser windows up, a/c on, radio and cb radio on he heard me form a mile away.