Speeding and Parking Ticket Escape Stories
What’s the best way to avoid getting a speeding or parking ticket? Obviously, you could not speed and not park illegally. But we all make mistakes, and chances are, you’ve gotten one at some point. You also probably know someone who has evaded a ticket.
In terms of parking tickets, Boston criminal lawyer David Yannetti said the most common defense he encounters is people saying their parking meter was broken.
Yannetti said people tend to fight these parking tickets by sending in cellphone pictures of the broken meter along with a note.
“But beyond that, I don’t know how you’d fight a parking ticket,’’ Yannetti said. “You either pay it or you don’t.’’ When it comes to speeding tickets, however, Yannetti said drivers feel they have more defense options. They’ve become “emboldened.’’
“Twenty years ago, before the Internet was prevalent, if people were caught speeding on radar, it was hard to fight,’’ he said. “But now, thought the machines have gotten much better, people can do research and become a ‘do-it-yourself’ lawyer.’’
Yannetti said it’s common now for people to ask more questions of the troopers who pull them over and question the radar used.
According to a survey done by Insurance.com, the most common way drivers get out of speeding tickets is to “plead ignorance.’’
“I couldn’t see the sign telling me not to do it,’’ was the number one excuse given to police officers, according to the survey.
It was followed closely by, “I’m lost and unfamiliar with the roads.’’
They gathered the stats by surveying 500 licensed drivers over 18 in 2013. The survey also found that men and women are more likely to use different excuses.
Men, they said, are more likely to say they were rushing to help out a friend, while women are more likely to plead ignorance. They found that 90 percent of men (versus 10 percent of women) have at some point said, “I was just helping out.’’ Meanwhile, 65 percent of women surveyed have said they were lost, while only 35 percent of the men said they have used that excuse.
But officers probably hear these excuses all the time.
We asked our readers and staff members, and filtered out some of the more ‘creative’ responses. There were a few trends:
Some were polite.
While others used humor…
Still, in other cases, the police officer felt bad for the driver.
But the best way of all? When it was truly no one’s fault at all – except maybe the snow’s.
This happened to Boston.com staffer Sanjay Salomon when he got a parking ticket for an expired meter. He said the City of Cambridge dismissed the ticket after he appealed, explaining that several meters were apparently broken from a recent cold snap.
But be careful using this defense. It worked for Salomon, but Yannetti said in some communities, if a meter appears broken, you aren’t supposed to park there.
Despite Salomon’s parking snafu, Boston’s brutal winters actually cause fewer parking tickets, it seems: CBS Boston studied 1.3 million Boston parking tickets issued last year and found less tickets were issued in winter. February saw 88,000 parking tickets, while October saw 123,000.
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