10 Tips to Avoid Speeding Tickets

It's no secret that speeding tickets can be an enormous pain. Depending on where you live (and how fast you're driving), the fines can be pretty hefty, too. So how can you best avoid getting one? Tune in to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome
to the podcast. I'm Scott, Ben and Ben bolland Ben.
We've got a another list to kind of follow along today,
and I think that's something that our listeners will find valuable. Yes,

(00:23):
our listeners will definitely find it valuable if they're one
of the forty one million people in the United States
who will receive a speeding ticket this year, No kidding,
forty one million this year along no full and buddy.
That breaks down to an average number of people per
day they receive a speeding ticket would be a hundred

(00:43):
and twelve thousands whoa every day, every twenty four hours.
I had no idea that it was that extensive, that
there were that many getting tickets. So we can keep
playing with numbers, my friends. Uh, that makes the total
percentage of drivers that will get a speeding ticket this
year more than Wow, no kids, any point six. I'll say,
I'm I'm blown away by these number. Forty one million

(01:05):
in the in the year, how many per day? Hundred
and twelve thousand, Holy cow, that's a that's a huge number. Man. Now,
I occasionally we'll see somebody getting a ticket on my
way home. Not very often. It's not every day, it's
not even every week, maybe even um, just on the
route that I travel, and it is highway. Maybe a
lot of that has to do with traffic congestion, you know,
unable to speed because you know, you get tickets for
other things, tail led out into a California roll, little roll,

(01:29):
a little road rage maybe something like that. Yeah, exactly,
something like that. Right, So, um, but I'm not accustomed
to seeing tickets being given out every day. But man,
that is a huge number. The average cost of a
speeding ticket, including the fees, is about a hundred and
fifty two dollars. That's average. Well, yeah, that's average, is
and that's a little bit scary. This was This comes

(01:51):
from the US Highway Patrol. Um and this was as
of May of which you know is a year ago. Now, huh.
Any we just this is our first time recording. We
get a lot um, so we wanted to open up
with some of these statistics to just to show that, uh,

(02:12):
speeding tickets, at least in the United States, which are
the only thing we really speak to in this episode,
are really common. Um, you know, there are a hundred
and nineties six million registered drivers in the United States,
or licensed drivers rather and um. Of those forty one
million who get a speeding ticket at some point in

(02:33):
the year, how many do you think can test their
tickets in traffic court? Go you had to guess you
know the number? Yes, Okay, I'm gonna say. I'm gonna
say it's a low number. I'm gonna say. It's like
it is a very low number. It's five percent. Oh
my gosh, you're kidding. Only five percent. Only five percent
try to fight that ticket. Only five percent try to

(02:54):
fight that ticket, which I thought would make a good
segue for us. You know, it seems like it seems like,
I know, I'm blowing your segway perfect. It seems to
me like everybody who gets a ticket says, I got
a ticket, but I'm gonna go fight it in court.
I always hear that. I hear that from anybody who
gets a ticket. It seems like, now, I, personally, have
you ever fought a speeding ticket. I have never fought

(03:17):
a speeding ticket, because here's the thing, Scott, I've never
been framed. Really every time I a true offender, right
and likewise, for me, and I'll tell you. I mean,
I need to come clean. Then early in my driving career, yeah,
I got a lot of speeding tickets, multiple per year,
and it got to the point where I ended up

(03:39):
on a suspended license, actually I should say a restricted license,
and then on the restricted license, got another speeding ticket,
and then got a suspended license. And for a very
very short amount of time. I mean it just like
just a little tiny wrist lap and it didn't it
didn't hurt me all that bad. I mean like a criminal,
like a career criminal or anything like that. It was
just simply speeding tickets. But I was young. And the

(04:01):
thing is, you're kind of on that probationary period. And
I again, I had a lead foot. It's it's gone
away over the years, I mean right place, right time,
as we always say, right and I've knocked on wood.
I've been been able to avoid speeding tickets for a
good ten to twelve years now. I mean, I don't
even remember the last time I got a speeding ticket. Yeah,
I guess so. And you know, I just don't. I

(04:23):
just don't do that anymore. But I used to. And
I can sympathize with some of the things that you
know people say about it, you know, like I was
again you said we were framed. I understand what you're
saying that. You know, you're you're getting caught in a
bad situation. You're trying to pass the vehicle that's been
frustrating you on the highway. It happens to be when
you're going over hill and there's a state trooper right there. Right,
something like that happens, and you weren't speeding prior to that.

(04:44):
You weren't planning to speed after that, but you were
just speeding at that point and that's where we caught you.
You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. That happens.
I know that happens for sure. But the the guy
that you know had written this article, or the guy
that this article is written about, I should say, we're
going to kind of follow along here. And it's a
popular Mechanics are Coals written by Philiberg. He's talking to
a guy named Richard Diamond, the managing editor at Washington

(05:06):
TUNT exactly, and he has he's kind of a an
advocate for drivers as far as um protecting them against speeding,
speeding tickets, speeding laws and what he calls unjust, unjust laws,
unjust tickets that are being called an unfair tax. Yeah,
I guess that's maybe a good way to say it,
he says. I mean, he's outright saying that there's a
this is a way of police agencies to fund themselves.

(05:29):
It's a way for communities to raise money. He sees
uh drivers, I guess is kind of a revenue source
for uh, you know, whatever projects they happen to have going.
That's what he sees this as. Now, this is these
are his words, not ours. I mean, I understand what's
going on. They of course they want to keep the
streets safe. I'm not saying this any of our you know,
listeners out there, who in law enforcement, who state troopers, whatever.

(05:51):
I'm not saying this personally. Ben's not saying this personally.
It's not the way how stuff works, feels about it,
or any of that. We're just you know, commenting on
what Richard Diamond says. Now will say this, I know,
as a sidebar to a sidebar, I will say that
although he's more zealous about this than I am, certainly
more I I don't really agree with him on the
idea of speeding tickets just being funding devices. But when

(06:13):
he mentions the automatic ticketing machines and the red light cameras,
that that does have uh, some concrete proof to it,
at least in a few circumstances. We know that they
changed the timing on those yellow lights. We do know that,
and that that has led to some changing in legislation

(06:34):
that that you know, they've actually removed red lights red
lights sensor. I'm sorry, what are we talking about? Cameras.
That's the name of it, red light cameras. And I
think something like the thirty communities there is the thirty States,
thirty cities have been have been removed recently and that
but that that I think is a different case. Although
I am on board with him here. Um again, I

(06:55):
think he did a great job with the caveat there,
Scott saying that the this is diamond, this is not us.
We have some things to say about this list, but
we'll we'll go through it. Yeah, let's do it. Kind
of tell you what we're going to kind of go
through it a little bit on the quick quick side.
And then I've got another list that is another similar
list that comes from a different place. Now we're gonna
talk about this popular mechanics article first, and we're gonna

(07:17):
go on to a list from Reader's Digest, and then
I've got kind of maybe a maybe a high tech
surprise at the end. How about that. That's uh, that's
maybe not the best way to put it, but there's
something coming at the end that we always have one. Yeah,
you'll be interested in what happens at the end. So
now I do want to point out that Diamond says
that speeding tickets make up of all tickets that are

(07:38):
handed out. Then that's that's parking tickets, that's the again,
the road rage tickets, all that stuff that we talked about,
traffic infractions whatever, you know, headlights out, whatever, of those
are speeding tickets alone. And he says that states are
reporting speeding ticket revenue somewhere on the meta in the
range of something like two billion dollars annually in the
United States alone, And that's uh, that's just use that's

(08:00):
built off the data from forties states that that report
that revenue, because the other ten don't. Yeah, that's right,
So you know, the other ten are a little bit
shady about it. I guess they're not. They're not releasing
the numbers I don't want to say shady. Maybe they're
just not releasing the numbers because of you know, backlash
or feared backlash. But he's he's estimating that the two
billion dollars annually um is what we're what we're paying

(08:23):
out in tickets every single year in the United States.
So speaking is a big deal here as far as
revenue generation, right, he clearly thinks that it's a primarily
and economic motive and you're gonna hear that throughout. And
the other thing that I need to mention and when
I promise, we'll get into number one here in a second.
But the other thing I think we need to mention
here is that a lot of these have to deal
with after you get a ticket, all right, like how

(08:44):
to deal with it once you have a tickets. And
I know that the title is how to avoid speeding tickets,
but this is more like what you do after you
get the ticket, how to avoid actually being accountable for
that ticket? Right, Yeah, how to avoid uh following through
with it. So number one, which is common sense, and
like most common sense, a lot of people don't practice it.

(09:06):
Situational awareness. Yeah, traffic slows. There's a reason the traffic
is slowing down, you slow down as well. And this
is just staying with the flow of traffic, right, I mean,
if everybody else is going fifty, you know, are they
slowed down to forty, you don't continue to go sixty
five or seventy or eighty as you were. I mean
there's a reason for that, and that's just a general
safety rule. I think a lot of people understand that.
But if there's one lane open, they'll get in that

(09:28):
lane and go seventy five just like they were. And
that kind of leads this into the next one, which
is be ready for anything. Yeah, all right, So what
he means when he says this is that there are
you know, of course, there's speed traps, there are hidden cameras,
there's speed cameras. Um. The idea is that you can

(09:49):
you can be found to be speeding a number of ways.
I think this ties into situational awareness as well. I
think so too, because there's stationary radar, is lidar, which
is you know, um that is a laser radar, right. Um.
There's also something called a called VASCAR, which is a
stop stop watch calculator. I mean that just judges a

(10:11):
time and distance that you traveled um and determines the
speed that way. It's it's kind of a low tech
version of everything. And the state laws. This is the
most valuable point about number two, I think, is that
the state laws do not use the same methods across
the nation. Now, that's right, And we'll talk about some
of the different methods that they use later on, because

(10:31):
that think it's really important, and it gets really tricky
and and there's a lot of detail in this thing
that most most motorists I don't think will really know
until they hear it from him or they go they
go on the site and read you know what what
Richard Diamond has suggested, because uh man, you've got to
do some measuring, you've got to do some photography, maybe
bringing for bringing witnesses, yeah, forensics exactly. So yeah, he

(10:55):
gets pretty in depth of this. Now. The third one,
keep a low profile. Now I totally stand this one,
and I truly believe this. It is absolutely true. We
all know that UM red cars, for instance, are more
likely to have to pay higher insurance even just because
they're so much more likely to be pulled over in
the traffic stop. And this is true. I mean, it's

(11:17):
it's out right true. I mean, you could have a
minivan that's going eighty miles an hour on the highway
and a Ferrari right next to it that's going to
you know, eighty miles an hour on the and that
Ferrari is gonna get the ticket, They're gonna get pulled over,
and they're gonna let the minivan go. Typically that's just
the way it goes. I mean, that's uh, that's I
mean again, keep a little profile, don't call attention to yourself.
That's the best way to do it. I mean, it's

(11:37):
it's a smart move, but it's tough to do in
some situations because you know, you have that great car
that you want in the gradually you want to drive,
and it's tough to avoid doing sometimes. I think it's
one of the hazards of owning it for sure. But
people who own those cars have to know what they're
getting into. Um and is it fair? Not necessarily, But

(11:57):
if we're looking at the way a trap fix op
is supposed to go, than the only reason you are
supposed to get pulled over is if you are breaking
the law of some sort. So this is a long
running this is a long rain debate but the truth
of the matter is, no matter how you want to
look at it, a high performance car will draw more

(12:20):
attention to it, uh to uh to anyone, even if
it's just piddling around at thirty five miles per hour
in school zone. Well, you can see this in a
parking lot. If it's parked in a parking lot and
it's not moving at all, what's gonna get garner more
attention the red Ferrari or the minivans parked next to it.
Absolutely so, I mean it's understandable. I get that. It's

(12:40):
a it draws people's attention. Your eyes going to go
to that one. That's the one that they're gonna pick.
Totally understandable. The next the next one. Number four, and
this is where it gets into a little uh kind
of like the legal ease type stuff, a little bit
of psychology, just a little bit. I mean, I understand
what he's doing here, but this is where it takes
a turn. Okay, Yeah. Number four is yeah, you gotta

(13:00):
keep quiet. And what he means by keep quiet is
now you're a polite person. You're respectable when they are
you're respectful when the officer approaches the vehicle. You you know,
offer up information that you know that they're asking, I
mean to a point. Only to a point though, because
he says that all you're really required to do is
hand over your life, your registration and insurance, and that's it.

(13:21):
You don't have to answer or say anything else, according
to him. Now this gets a little tricky, Ben, because
I mean, I guess it's just the way that I've
always been you know, taught or raised, is that you
know someone in the authority figure state trooper is at
your door, you know, at your car door and asking you.
I mean, he's probably saying, like, what do you think
you're doing? Son, or something like it, But he's more like, uh,

(13:42):
do you have any idea f faster going something like that? Right? Well,
Richard Diamond is saying, you don't have to say anything
at that point. You just respectfully say that you're waiting
for your attorney. You don't want to speak until you
have an attorney representation. You know, you want to wait
for your lawyer. You're, um, just keep using your right
to remain silent. I guess, right, and um his Okay,

(14:03):
His point here is that people who are rude or
antagonistic to a police officer are just gonna get more tickets.
They're not gonna get warnings. While while that is true,
and he says, don't antagonize, um, it's it's safe to
say that there are at least some law enforcement officers

(14:23):
who will be who will interpret it as antagonizing you,
as antagonizing them. If you say i'd like to I'm
gonna wait for my lawyer, I choose to remain silent.
I choose to remain side. And even though that's not
really where he'd say that, right, you're kind of escalating
that situation. I think you are too, I'd say, I'd say,
in that situation, there's gonna be no warning. I'd say

(14:43):
that the officer is going to take at you in
that situation if you do that when you think so,
I would think so. But but again, if you can,
if you can do it, just it's important to know
that you are not required to uh, you are not
required to answer a bunch of other stuff now. But
I think if you're polite, if you you know, you
fest up that you know you're well, I don't know
about fessing up. I don't know about that. It's just

(15:05):
if you're just as blige as you can be exact
because there are another person doing their job exactly. They're
not they're not they're specifically to ruin your morning. Yeah,
and I think you know, I'm going to backtrack on
that festing up to actually speed him because later we're
gonna find out that's maybe a bad move. Yeah, don't
do it, but um, I do find that. You know,
if you're polite and you're you're respectable to you know,

(15:26):
the officer that shows up to your door in your
car door. Um, you do everything right, you know, you
turn down the radio, you have the window crag, you know,
roll down seking. See there you're in park all that. Um,
I think things will go relatively smoothly. I mean you
may still get a ticket, but there's a chance you're
gonna get a warning. Yeah. And um let's go, let's
go to number five before we let's just keep going
through the list. So, uh, this is very important to

(15:47):
Mr Diamond. Fight every ticket. He says, Wow, when you
said only five percent of the population fights a ticket. Um,
he says, fight every single ticket. So that would man,
that would tie up the courts incredibly, wouldn't it. Yeah? Uh,
And uh, the idea here is that there are a
lot of ways to contest a ticket, and this returns
back to the discrepancy between the way each state will

(16:11):
either allow tickets to be uh carried over in the
courts or allow tickets to be dismissed. And what the
specifically points to is that he's talking about photo tickets
and one way around a photo ticket, and a lot
of people may not have thought about this, and this
is really kind of strange, is that I guess there's
there's precedent for this already set in the courts. And
there's a case called Melenda's Diaz versus Massachusetts. It's a

(16:32):
case from two thousand nine, and it's where the Supreme
Court ruled that the sixth Amendment right to face one's
accuser applies to lab tests and in California, this is
specifically for California for photo tickets. That can be interpreted
to mean that photo tickets can't be valid unless the
technician who analyze the photo testifies in court against you.
And what's the odds that they're gonna bring in the

(16:54):
photo technician that analyzed that that that analyze that photo
is going to be available for that court date. It's
very very small right, you're playing on a percentage. You're
you're saying, you're thinking that they're not going to be available,
but who knows, maybe they will show up that day
and we uh we can also go into uh later
examples of that. We'll find that idea of calling the
bluff of someone to show up in court comes up

(17:16):
another list again. Now number six here, um, is the
idea checking the calibration of the radar if you're caught
with radar. Now, this won't work in the state like Vermont,
where a cop can still just say, oh, I guess
he was going about eighty three. Yeah, that that doesn't
quite fly. Really, um, Now that the thing is that
radar evidence is usually admissible, right and presuming the calibration

(17:40):
is correct, and that's what he's going for here, this
calibration thing. But in some states any laser ticket is
thrown out automatically because there's no calibration possible for laser radar,
which I had no idea. I thought there had to
be some kind of type of way to calibrate these things.
But the way, the way that he's talking about is
that the typical radar device that would would clock you. Now,
this is something that I really hadn't even thought of.

(18:01):
But you have to check the manufacturer specifications for the device.
This sounds like a lot of trouble. Ben You check
the manufacturer spects for the of the device via the
Freedom of Information Act, and you have to request the
police department that issued the ticket to ask for a
description of how the police department um abided by the
calibration specific spects rather based on the manufacturer specifications, so

(18:25):
you have to make sure that they match up exactly.
And what usually is involved in this is that you
have to check the radar guns frequency with a tuning
fork that's provided by the radar gun manufacturer, and then
they have to send the unit to the manufacturer to
have it recalibrated. And man, man, I wonder how many
radar detectors are out there they're being used that haven't
been sent back into the manufacturer for recalibration. I bet

(18:47):
there's a lot. Yeah, quite a few. Just because think
about it, it's uh, how often does anyone do regular
maintenance when they're not specifically required to all the time.
I guess you're right, and I know that there are
probably some police departments that are on top of this
and they're they're calibrated all the time. I bet that happens.
I'm sure there are quite a few. I think again,
he's just trying to play the number. I think that's

(19:09):
exactly what happens here. I think you're planning numbers and
you're saying, you know, I'm gonna bet on the fact
that this this the specific gun that captured me is
is not has not been calibrated in the last year,
you know, with this full procedure, the tuning fork thing
that the manufacturers sent, you know, they're and back and
recalibrated and certified and all that. I mean, it is
quite a hassle. It's a hassle for them to do

(19:30):
that to begin with, the hassle for the driver to
go through the fact finding a bit of this to
see if that gun has been sent in and I
wonder what the but I wonder what the calibration schedule
would be. Maybe it probably It probably varies by manufacturer. Probably.
But another thing that's important to remember when you do
these kind of these kind of actions is that so

(19:51):
long as you are polite and respectful, uh, people aren't
gonna think you're some James Bond villain. Yeah, exactly. You're
not gonna You're not gonna have police trying to catch
you every time you leave your driveway, uh, saying how
dare you check your radar? No, you know it will
be persecuted. No, I don't think so. I mean, and
let's move on to number seven. Talk about that. So

(20:11):
the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or the New
York Times bestseller I'm kidding m U t c D
has all of the specifications for speed limit signs. And
if these speed limit signs aren't up to code, then
you can beat the ticket, argues Diamonds. Yeah, on a technicality,

(20:32):
which is I mean the technicality like the speed limit sign.
I mean, come on, this is a This is getting
into one of those like, well, you know, you have
to take photographs, you have to measure, you have to
make sure that it's it matches up exactly with this code,
you know, the Uniform Traffic Control Device code UM, which
he has a link to in the story. By the way,
you can go check this out. I mean, it's not
anything difficult to find UM, and also points out that

(20:55):
a lot of places hide the speed cameras behind signs
and bushes and things. Like that. So you know, they
if it's hidden or if it's obstructed in any way,
like a branch has grown over, you know, the part
of the lens, that becomes another issue. You know, if
it's a if it's got an obstructed view in some way. So, man,
this is there's a There's a lot to be had
in this one. This one point here and point number
seven that um, I think if you really calmed over that,

(21:17):
that that code or that you know that uniform traffic
control device code, you could probably find something. You could
probably find some kind of loophole, but it's going to
take a lot of digging. It may take a lot
of time and effort on your part. Now number eight
is even more I think I think number eight is
a little bit more vague, if I could just be honestly,
it's a little vindictive in this one here it sounds

(21:37):
like he has some personal state. I think it definitely does.
Because this is primarily a point about making every effort
you can to record your interactions, both your interaction with
the initial ticket encounter. This would means somehow recording the
office or if it's legal, when they come up to

(21:59):
your car. Now I don't know about you. But if
I'm a law enforcement officer and I pull somebody over
and there and I think that they are speeding, and
I you know, I have it backed up what on
with my instruments, right, I'm not just guessing and the
dash cam and a dash cam, of course, it's I
call it in and walking around the car, you know,
assessing the situation whatever. And I see somebody you know,

(22:22):
with their cell phone open on the dash recording that
I'm gonna I'm I'm going to treat the situation a
little bit differently. Surely you're almost gonna treat and I
mean this in a in the most dramatic sense, but
I mean you're gonna treat them as a hostile person.
They're gonna you're gonna say that like there there's somehow
I have to get you. You're gonna understand that. And

(22:42):
and you're just doing your job. You're pulling them over
for for speeding. They're they're trying to record you. They're
trying to catch you make a catching. You make a mistake,
and that makes people nervous, and that probably will make
them make a mistake. I mean, it's something, right, there's
gonna be some type of of adaptation there it changes
the nature of the encounter. In some states, apparently it
is illegal to record police officers on a cell phone. Um.

(23:04):
Diamond's point about this is a very good point in
legal practice in general, which is that people's memories can
be faulty, and if you can find a discrepancy between
what happened in the recorded conversation and what happens in
the the later rite of of the conversation, then you
can damage the credibility. And we should say that. You know,

(23:26):
there have been people that have been arrested just for
the act of recording conversations between them and a police officer.
Those do, yeah, exactly, in Massachusetts and Illinois, they've been
arrested for that. But it does, yeah, you said, Ben,
it does get They do get dismissed for that. I mean,
it does often tend to work the other way. But um,
one one last thing on this one, this number eight,

(23:46):
is that the way he leads into this, and this
will give you an idea of this guy's slant towards
this whole thing. And I'll quote him. He says, the
judge is not there to find you not guilty. The
judge is part of the revenue collection machine, give him
a reason to find you not guilty. And that's the
that's the bit about recording and making sure that everything
is lining up while your ducks in a row. Right. Yeah,
and that's that's true. That's why you said it might

(24:08):
have some personal sand Number nine, now, number nine, I'm
interested to see what you think about this, Scott, because
this is not talking about how to fight a ticket
that you were getting. This is not talking about how
to not speed. This is talking about how to not
get caught speeding. Yeah, that's all this is. This is different.
I mean, you're you're learning the patterns and and traits

(24:29):
of where police are and when they're there. So this
is almost like it's like you're casing the roadway right,
looking for changes in the shift, having a friend in
the local p d um. Now, I can I can
see where this would be a consideration, but I can
I have a tough time seeing this as a consideration

(24:51):
of someone who doesn't speed. And I think there's an
assumption here. You know, you and I know that, at
least in the States, one of the most widely broken
and widely ignored road rules is the speed limit. Yeah,
I think that's definitely the case. I mean, I think
people break that daily. I mean, even if it's just
a tiny little bit, you know, they're going over at
some place. Yeah. Who who drives the speed limit on

(25:12):
the interstate? You know, very very few people unless you're
in heavy, heavy traffic. There's very few people that do that.
And you know, as a matter of fact, when we've
talked about people that go too slow on the highway
and that's a danger. I mean, I think there's like
a lot of people have different rules and names for this,
but you know, like if eight percent of the traffic
is going this speed, then you should be going that speed,
even if it's above the limit, because that's the safe

(25:33):
thing to do. So, UM, a lot of variation on
this whole thing. And you know what, one last quick
thing that I need to mention about the methods they mentioned,
He mentions pacing, and pacing is one of the methods
that police often use for for giving tickets. Um and
he mentions Pennsylvania specifically because in Pennsylvania you have to
have at least they have to have at least followed
you for I think it's a three tenths of a mile, uh,

(25:56):
in order to use the proper pacing method. So, UM,
a lot of times they don't pace quite that far.
They pace a slightly slower or lesser distance, so they
get a little sloppy, you know, and he uses the
word sloppy. They get a little bit quick to pull
you over. And he's saying, you know, if you can
figure out exactly where they were when when they started
clocking you and when they stop clocking you using a

(26:16):
pacing method, Uh, that's maybe another technicality you can use. Um.
Now let's get to the last one. And this is
this is kind of a big one too, and really
this is one that is called action. Really, I guess
he's saying, put pressure on your on your legislators, anybody
that's local that has something to do with these these
red light camera rules. Um, anybody that you know works

(26:38):
in speed enforcement, anybody that uh you know has I
guess the ability to change um speeding tickets. And I'm
gonna say quotas, But I don't know if that's really
not something or not. I mean, that's kind of one
of those myths out there. Is that is that real
or is it not real? Um? He wants you to
put pressure on people to uh, to kind of slow
down this, uh, this revenue collection machine that he's talking about, right,

(27:00):
which he I think it's fairly apparent from his top
ten that he considers this overwhelmingly an issue of revenue
collection rather than public safe. Sure. Yeah, and as he
points out, and as we mentioned earlier, and I think
I had the number incorrect, but it's uh, he said,
the voter pressure his banned speed and red light automatic
ticket cameras in a petition by thirty cities just recently.

(27:21):
So you said that, yeah, like thirty cities said, I
have that. Okay, So thirty cities have have done away
with speed speed cameras, red light cameras. Um, you know,
an automatic ticket you know production we're dolling out. I
guess I don't know how to put that, but um,
I guess it really does work if you put pressure
on legislature to say I don't think this is right.

(27:42):
While you're checking that out, go ahead and listen up
to the rest of our podcast, because Scott, let's be honest,
neither of us thought that this top ten list from
the Popular Mechanics article was the silver bullet. No, now
there's more out there, and you know, a lot of these,
Like we said, this was that one was more towards, uh,
initially how to avoid tickets, and then it became how

(28:04):
to avoid a ticket once you have a ticket, right right,
And there are some things that I wanted to add,
if that's okay to that one, of course. Okay, So
let's start. Once you've already got the ticket and you're
trying to fight it in court. One of the things
that you can do, apparently, which I've never done myself,
is called the officer, call the issuing officer and ask

(28:26):
if you can talk to them about the ticket. And
they say, uh, don't just go to the meeting and say, hey,
will you let me out of this ticket? Man, be cool,
that's notly gonna work. You're calling them directly, and you're saying,
what are you saying? I mean, you're saying, like, I
know I was speeding, but I have a good reason,
and you know I was late at church that day
and I'm from an operation, and yeah, it's same. Bridge

(28:49):
of the officers, civilian thing. Have let them know what happened.
Why why you're in there? You know? Maybe you I mean,
I think it's important not to lie, so don't make
up a fictional grandmother or great aunt and have her like.
But if you really did have some compelling reason, then

(29:10):
there's nothing wrong with telling the officer, you know, I
got this ticket because, um, like my son is in
the hospital. Medical bills are really tough for us, which
is true for almost everyone in the United States. Uh So,
then he would that that might allow the officer to
identify with you. The idea is that the officer does

(29:31):
have the full authority to drop your ticket, and you know,
they can kind of mess around with this a little
bit and they can say, well, we can we can
make it so that you don't pay a fine, but
the points that are going to be on your ticket,
on your on your license brother and com and vice versa.
They can also say you can pay the fine, but
you don't have to have the points in the ticket.
And that's part of going to court is that you know,
and that's another tactic then now we mentioned court, is

(29:51):
that you can delay this whole thing. And I don't
know if I'm stepping ahead of your on your list,
but um, one of the tactics that a lot of
people us as they say they're going to go to court,
and they just are hoping that that officer is not
gonna be able to make it to court that day. Now,
they do schedule, I know they scheduled days specifically for
that officer to come into court. If you somehow delay
that another day or trying to choose another day on

(30:14):
your own, there's maybe a good chance that he's not
gonna be able to show up that day. And I mean,
I don't know if all that works or not. I've
just heard stories of this happening for many many years
that I've been driving, and I've never ever tried it myself.
I don't think I really want to try it myself.
I don't know either. See, because that's the thing with
calling someone at work, and another step to that would
be writing a letter to the issuing officer, to the

(30:37):
judge or prosecutor. I think you run a risk of
being a being, a peta being in the atmosphere. I
understand what you've become a You've become a nuisance to
that officer exactly, because that's the perfect words, got a nuisance,
And I like, pea, yeah, and you can you can

(30:58):
still be respectful do this, but UM, don't get to
the point where someone would say, oh, no, Joe Smith
is calling for the eighth time again. Yeah. I mean,
if you're calling over and over again, I just say,
you've become a nuisance and and that's not gonna get
you anywhere. As well, follow your court deadlines. Make sure
that you don't miss any of those. That's something that

(31:20):
happens with a lot of people, especially when they get,
you know, their first ticket or something they're not familiar
with the process. Um, it can be you know, you
can get in trouble if you miss a deadline. Not
knowing the law is no defense for breaking the law. Uh.
So then you know, as you said, delay, Um, I
think that's a great one. You could ask for continuances,

(31:42):
right and um that the uh this this list had
an interesting note here, Scott said. The person right said,
I heard of one case where the case was continued
so long that the ticketing officer transferred and the case
was dismissed. Lucky for that driver. Yeah, that's don't do that.
That's played a lottery. Um. You can also ask for

(32:04):
alternative punishment, they say. The primary concern for most drivers
keeping your ticket off your insurance rates. Right. Yeah, so
that's the points thing, right, Yeah, exactly, so maybe you
can go to driving school. UM, maybe you can pay
court costs and ticket, but your insurance premium doesn't go off.
So you're going to court. You're trying to work with
the judge and the officer and trying to find out

(32:25):
something that works for your situation. Like if you're okay
with the points on the ticket, but you don't want
to pay the fine, maybe you can break that work
if you want vice, you know, the the opposite vice versa.
That may work as well. They may go for it,
but usually there's one or the other right. And this
is something that I'm glad we got to the point
about insurance premiums because there were a couple of the
statistics that we read in the beginning that I think

(32:48):
are erroneous or at least arguable to me. And one
of those is that the average price would be a
hundred and fifty two dollars. Now we know that fines
for tickets very so widely that any average is not
gonna be the best representation. UM, and I don't think
it factors in the hidden cost of let's call it

(33:09):
the cost of ownership for that speeding ticket. After your
insurance premium goes up. That's gonna be a hundred and
fifty two dollars average off the top. But how much
is it every month that you will still be paying?
That's yeah, it's gonna add up over time more than
you would ever think. Really, I mean, it really is
a big, big cost. Anyway, here into the rants about insurance. UM,

(33:31):
I will correct myself on one of those statistics. I
think I gave the incorrect number of drivers. I've seen
it quoted as many as two hundred and nine million. UM.
I think that I'm gonna need to dig in and
get a more concrete number there. So nobody quote me
on the numbers for drivers, but the rest of it,
especially the average costs and the amount of people. UH

(33:56):
find that stuff measures up forty one million a year
in the US alone. It's amazing. Okay, Ben, So I
know we've we've gone through our our list of ten
that we initially wanted. I've got a shorter list of
six that I think I'm just gonna go through kind
of rapid fire. How about that? And uh, and then
maybe wrap up with one thing here at the end
that our listeners may or may not choose to use. Okay,
let's leave it that way. How about that? All right?

(34:17):
So this is this is Reader's Digest, and there's six tricks,
six tricks to avoiding speeding tickets, And it sounds almost
exactly like the ten list, right, only this is more
like how to how to really avoid them ahead of
time is in the first place, right, And I don't
think anything sneaks in here that you know once you've
already got the ticket. But let's go through it quick,
all right. Number one, understand that your car says a

(34:40):
lot about you. And this is kind of like the
you know, the Ferrari versus the minivans. I think only
what they're talking about is that when the when the
officer approaches your vehicle, you don't want to have something
that are like anti anti police stick you know, bumper
stickers on the car or any kind of you know,
like vulgar um um. I don't know, I've seen bumper

(35:02):
stickers and things like that, like like authority or anything
like that, you know, marijuana leaf or something that says
speed demon. Yeah, something like that would be a bad idea,
So I mean keep it, you know, understand that, you know,
even even like spoilers and tinted windows and neon lights
and things like that. That all gives like an immediate
impression of the officer or what you're gonna be like

(35:23):
when he approaches that window. And I know that's that's
not always the case I understand. Is that is that
morally correct? Uh? In many cases probably not, although I
will argue that if you are the person who has
a bumper sticker condoning like I hate police or let
me do illegal drugs. Uh, dude, you put it. If

(35:44):
you put it on there, you knew what you were
getting into. And and they do see that and they
do make a snap judgment about that person. They have to.
They have to kind of. They do have to profile
somebody almost immediately in order to be safe when they
approached the car. And then they're wrong. They're wrong. I
mean they they'll be pleasantly surprised when they get the
when they open the door or whatever. But um, I'm

(36:05):
saying that's that's something you don't want to do. Number two,
This is a weird one Ben wave at the hidden
police cruiser. So when you go buy a speeding trap,
you know, like you're you're on the highway and you
you go buy it and it's too late to slow down,
you know, or else did you jam on the brakes
or whatever they're saying, you actually physically wave to the
police officer in the car. Now, why would they do that? You? Hey,

(36:27):
why would someone do that? Well, Ben, I'm glad you asked,
because this is a strange thing. They feel that like
and even officers back this up. It's two things. Either one,
you're signaling that all right, I see you, I know
what I was doing. I apologize, I'm going to slow
down from this point forward. Or they think in the
split second that you're going past them, they think I
know that person. They think that the you know them

(36:49):
and you're waving to them and saying hi. And this
isn't so it's an odd mental trick. You just it's
a it's a it's a strange mental trick. And I
don't know if I buy this one at all. I
think this one is is a risky move. I think
you waved to a police officer as you pass them
going eighty on the highway. It might look like you're
a jerk. I think you're being a smartass. Yeah, I
mean really, well, okay, if here's the thing, If if

(37:13):
I know that I'm caught. You know, if I've done that,
then I would I'd be fine acknowledging that, you know,
because I feel like it might make you less antagonistic.
But it's tough to tell, Like the the it's so quick,
it's a snap of time. It's it's tough to tell
how that could be read. That's a strange one. I'll

(37:33):
tell you that. That's that. That's maybe the strangest one
in the whole list. Now number one, number three, and
this is one that we briefly talked about before. Never
admit that you were speeding. So everything that gets around,
you know, everything that he asked you or she asked you,
you never get around to, you know, like never get
around to saying like I wasn't speeding here, I wasn't
aware of my speed or something like that. I mean,

(37:54):
that's that's actually you don't You just don't want to
say that. You want to know. If they say, do
you have any idea how fast you're going? You say no?
Or do you take it extreme? Do you go what
is speed? No? Actually, actually they do say you go
with a noncommittal response. You say something like like I
just said, like you know, I'm i wasn't aware of
my speed. You don't say like how fast If they
say how fastre going? Like, I don't know, you just

(38:16):
go with something like I just wasn't aware. I'm not
really sure how fast I was going to subject where
are we exactly exactly? You try to, you try to,
and and the other thing is that along with this
is that it kind of speeds along the conversation. And
the idea behind that is that if if you're there
with him and interacting only for a very short amount

(38:36):
of time, nothing memorable happens in that time, the officer
is likely to forget this this you know, this accident
or this whether this stop happening, this encounter, this whole thing.
So if you do go to court, if you do
go to you know, show up in court, he's not
gonna remember you because of some odd thing that you said,
you know, like um, I'm I'm in labor and I'm
gonna have my baby right now or whatever. That's gonna

(38:57):
be memorable to that guy. If you say something in usual,
are off the wall, he's gonna remember that. Versus when
you go into court and you only interacted for you know,
a total of forty five seconds, you know, as you
hand it over your license, right, which is a little
bit contradictory in terms of the other advice offer, which
was to establish a personal connection with the officer after
you received the That's exactly right. This is a as

(39:17):
a directly counter into a counteractive way to look at things,
all right. The next one, plead not guilty and defer
your court date as often as you can. And we
talked about this already. Now we don't we don't really
need to talk about this. We've we've covered that one.
Defer that conversation. Know the tactics that can get your
ticket dismissed. That's a this is a big one. Now

(39:38):
there's a couple of points here that I want to mention,
and this is some things you can just look for
if you want to. But and these again very by state,
so different rules. Uh. Let's say that the the issue
and officer doesn't doesn't show up for your court date,
or if two officers were in the patrol car when
you were ticketed, but only one of them shows up
for the court date, that's something that can get you
off on the ticket. Another thing is that if there's

(39:59):
a factual air on the tap, it itself. Like let's
say your license plate number or name or date or
any kind of fact or figure is wrong in there,
maybe you can get off the hook for that. UM.
There's also you got to make sure that there's a
correct speed limit signed posted within a reasonable distance of
where you're pulled over UM in the United States and
now again varies by state, but in the United States
that distance is usually about a quarter mile. That's where

(40:20):
they're required to have a speed limit posted. UM. So
if you're pulled over in an area that you haven't
passed a speed limit within a quarter mile, you may
get off on that ticket. So these these are strange
little you know, rule twists. I guess that you can
you can work on. UM. The last one, Ben, this
is this is kind of strange, and I had never
heard of this one. UM p O I software was

(40:43):
p I. Well, it's, uh, you know, points of interest
And you would think, what is the points of interest
software gonna do for me? This is what we're talking
about navigation systems like world's greatest, world's largest frying pan.
It's most people think of this as like way to
find a gas station, a way to find um, you know,
a restaurant or exactly whatever, a sports stadium. But you're

(41:08):
gonna find that if you on your GPS navigation system,
you can find current, like up to date or modern
p o I software that will allow you to tell
you when you're approaching stop lights that are hooked up
to traffic cameras so people are keyed in this information.
You can and it's like you may have to, you know,
look for a separate menu to find stuff like this,

(41:28):
but it's there oftentimes. I know you wouldn't think of that.
But and the last thing, Ben, oh wait, are you
doing the the technological things? Yeah, I guess so we're
gonna we're gonna kind of continue on with this that
with the stem of po I software, and let's you
have something else you wanted to add to that. Well, um,
I don't want to interrupt the role here, but I
do have just some statistics that would be we should

(41:49):
mention before we get all right, how about this? Let
me continue on with my with my p o I
software thing because this kind of plays right into um,
you know this whole thing about um technolog gene cars.
I want to see what you're gonna say, because I
think I might know well, there's a lot of technology
and cars now right and and a lot of people
are carrying their own phones well as you would expect,
there's an app for that, and uh and traffic tickets

(42:13):
are one of the things that there's an app for.
And there's seven of them, and I'll just name them
real quickly. I don't want to really go into too
much detail, but they all have the basic same basic
function is that users you know, target or or pin
I guess areas and I don't know the best way
to say that. They put in an area, they locate
an area where they can report speed traps, they can
report red light cameras, they can report anything that they

(42:36):
find a little shady, like areas that are that are
typical speed traps on highways, things to watch out for
in different areas. They can use it to kind of
communicate between each other. And this kind of this covert
network of UM mobile devices. You know that that users
are you know, able to access them anywhere? Really is
that legal? It is legal, Ben, There's no there's nothing

(42:56):
that says that they can't do this. It's almost like
you're of course, you know that you're using a device
while you're driving so I don't know about that. However,
it's a little different than the nav systems stuff because
that's just something that's already you know, loaded, and it's
on your on your dath board. It's just operating. This
is something you have to actively use, so check your
local laws or whatever state laws. But I'll just name

(43:18):
a few of these and then i'll be done. There's
one called traffic Tweet. There's one called Trapster. There's one
called speed view Pro. Phantom Alert, which seems to get
pretty good, uh pretty good ratings, you know for as
far as people avoiding tickets. Uh so, Phantom Alayer is
a good one. Cobra I radar, which is actually deemed
as or are touted as the most advanced and smartest

(43:40):
detection technology in the world because you plug your device
into the radar detector and they work together. They work together.
Ben so like and I had never heard this, like
your radar detector and your phone or mobile device whatever
it happens to be, they can communicate together and it
becomes like the super device that and I don't really
know and among us say that super device because I

(44:01):
don't really know how better to describe it. But that's
just cool. It expands the knowledge of both devices. Um,
there's one called fuzz Alert, and there's another one called ways,
which a lot of people are you know, find popular
as well. They like to use that one. So again
there's a lot of apps that you can use for
avoiding tickets. Yes, and we will go ahead and describe

(44:24):
some statistics I mentioned earlier that we would be remiss
not to mention. So for the people who are pulled
over during these traffic stops, UM, more of them are
going to be men, uh, the women and more of
these let's see approximately eight of drivers that were pulled

(44:48):
over by police in two thousand and eight, uh felt
they have been stopped for legitimate reason, which is this
is a majority. Right. Um, But we do know that
we do know that currently black drivers are more likely
the white drivers to be stopped. Um, and also more
likely than Latino or Hispanic drivers. UM, so we do

(45:12):
know that, uh that there's still isn't completely and even game.
I guess I don't want to call speeding a game now,
you know what, though, I want to say that I
would guess, and just my personal guess, I would guess
a lot more men's speed than women. I mean honestly, yeah,
I mean for real, I mean, and I know that

(45:32):
they're getting pulled over more often, but I think that
they're speeding more often. Is yeah, I don't think they're
getting framed. Yeah, I don't think we're getting framed. No,
I agree. And I mean the whole profiling thing, that's
another issue. I mean, that's a that's a completely different thing.
And when I said profiling before I met with with cars,
you know, with the car itself, with the with the
exterior character characteristics of the car. They make snap decisions

(45:52):
based on that. And uh, and I wasn't talking about
race or or creed or age or anything. That's absolutely
and I was either a one into I wanted to
bring this in just because, um, I think for a
lot of our listeners that is an interesting thing, you know,
Um people do people have sometimes asked me, you know,
is hey, is that a myth? It's not. It's a

(46:15):
real thing. But um, we say all that to build
toward the number one way to avoid a speeding ticket.
And you already know, I know, I think it's kind
of anti climactic. Go ahead and hit it. What is it?
Don't speed? Yeah, don't speed. It's so simple, right, I mean,
that's the that's the that's the general rule we get

(46:36):
out of this whole thing, is our general message. I guess,
don't speed and you're not gonna have any of these problems.
I mean it sounds like all that we've talked about,
We've talked for fifty minutes or something like that, Right,
We've talked about how to avoid tickets, how to how
to deal with them once you get them, weasel your
way out. It is such a headache when it happens.
I mean, it's really it's it's becomes this this weight
on your shoulders. It's a tough thing to deal with.

(46:59):
Missing works, can file an f O. I A. I
mean I'm talking personally. I then I've had to wake
up at four in the morning and drive to northern
Indiana to go to appear in front of a court
or in front of a judge because I was speeding
in Indiana in this in this county. You know, above
a certain threshold, you have to appear in front of
the judge. Even though it's just a standard ticket. It
wasn't anything unusual. Um. So, I mean it's it becomes

(47:20):
a real pain. It's really really difficult. So what I'm
saying is like and you said it to the easiest
way to get around this whole thing is just don't speed.
And the other thing is be polite, be respectful to
the officers that you know, if you do get a ticket,
or you are or you think you're gonna get a ticket,
be polite, respectful, know the laws, and just know that
you know whatever that happens to be no that no

(47:41):
the speeding laws, which is you know important. I mean,
if it's a if it's school zone, no that you
know the school's own limit. If it's it's a hospital zone,
you adhere to those rules and you know. Also it
doesn't hurt to know you know that you can't be
bullied by the police as well. I mean that's another
thing that's a whole different issue. But know the laws,
know what you know what your legal limits are, I suppose,

(48:05):
and if you understand that, you know you'll be okay.
But the biggest thing then is just don't speed now.
And also, uh, I just want to put this as
a teaser. One of the most interesting things that I
learned in our outside research here was that you some
some of our US listeners, especially if you're well to do,
should be thankful that you're not getting speeding tickets in

(48:25):
places like Finland, where the ticket will be based on
your annual income. Yeah, and that can get very very
expensive for some people that make quite a bit of money,
don't It doesn't. Land already has a high cost of living.
I know, I've seen stories of people that receive tickets there,
you know, one hundred thousand dollars more more. Yeah. So, um,
and that's of course extremely high income individuals. But um,

(48:47):
I guess it works for you if you're a lower
income right, Yeah, maybe I don't know. Well, here, you know,
it's still a strong penalty. I mean, whatever it is,
it's still based on a percentage of your income. Yea,
So it's gonna be a high penalty no matter what. Yeah,
it's still gonna is still matter who you are, right,
I mean the dollar amount differs, sure, But but you know,
the the underlying rule or law rather or I don't know,

(49:08):
maybe lesson the moral. The moral of the story is
just don't speed. And with that said, we're gonna head
out of here. I'm gonna burn some rubber down to
beat that Atlanta traffic. Bad idea, But how fast do
you think I can go? I don't even know you
have that Monte Carlo one, don't even try it. Oh yeah,

(49:30):
well I do have some work to do with the car, honestly,
so we're gonna go ahead and head out. We hope
that you have enjoyed this episode on speeding tickets and
how to avoid them, how not to be a not
to be a monster to uh the police officer, because
it we'll come back to all let you uh and
we would like to hear your speeding ticket stories. Guys.

(49:51):
I am sure that you have a speeding ticket story.
If you are comfortable telling us, that's fine. If you
don't want us to say your name, that's fine to
you. You You can find us at Facebook. You can find
us on Twitter. You should check out our website car
Stuff Show dot com, and you can email us directly
at car stuff at Discovery dot com. For more on

(50:14):
this and thousands of other topics, this at how stuff
works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
M