Caught Speeding?

I was given a ticket last night for speeding, but the Garda informed me when giving me the ticket that these cases were usually thrown out of court, and nearly told me not to pay.
When I asked to see the speed I was doing the answer was givin was that there was no print out available, and he didnt have a radar. I didnt see any gun, or any speed detector at all. It seems he was driving behind me (in an unmarked car, and it was nighttime)

I would like to know what are my chances of this being thrown out of court.
If I would need to have a solicitor with me for the day to court.
Would I be better off just paying up and getting the fine

fix heading typo

Re: Caught Speeging?

Were you speeding?

If not contest is my advice.

If you were take it on the chin.

...

The legislation states that the apparatus used must provide proof of speed ie a printout. The fixed cameras do, the handheld guns dont.Most of them are thrownout or withdrawn if challenged.

Re: ...

Could you not ask a local guard to ask the other fella to quash it for you ?

Re: ...

Make a request in writing for evidence (register the letter as well). See if anything is sent to you. If not, relax because they probably won't bring it any further.

Re: ...

How would I go about challenging it.


"Make a request in writing for evidence "
I'm intrigued, to who would this go to....

If it does (i'm very lucky that knida way) make it to court, do i need to bring representation or would lil old me be enough.

Thanks....
Oh yeah


I may have been speeding (some langer was up my ass, turns out it was the garda) but the garda cant prove it (he didnt even have a gun) so it's down to him driving trying to match my speed. and a reading of 50miles per hour seems very convenient.

..

When was his speedodmeter last calibrated....there is no way in the world giving a ticket based off matching someone for speed could or in fact should stand up in court.

Re: ...

some langer was up my ass, turns out it was the garda

Personally I'd be far more worried about this. That must've been rather sore and possibly non-consentual!

I'd imagine the writing for evidence would just take the form of some simple letter to the garda in question asking for evidence to be provided to show that you were speeding.

The whole incident sounds quite strange though - especially the part where he told you you'd get away with it! Why give you the ticket so?

I don't know the ins and outs of the legal process but if it's you and a garda standing in front of a judge and you say you weren't speeding and the garda says you were...who do you think the judge will believe?

I dunno

"you'd get away with it! "

I know thats my point, had he not mentioned anything I'd be paying the thing and getting the Points.
but he went out of his way to say this so....

I dunno....
2 points and 80 bucks
or
4 points and up to 800 bucks.
or
0 points and 0 bucks

I know which one suits me most.

Speeding

The following article from the Indo dated 31 May might be of use:

Poorly-worded tickets could let speeding drivers off hook

Re: Speeding

I requested evidence after getting a ticket in the post, for an alledged offence on the Ballymun road. I requested evidence (the address was on the ticket) and that was the last I heard of it. This was 3 or 4 years ago.

Re: Speeding

lynchtp...

"up the ass"
"bucks"

Yer in Ireland now boyo! Less of the Americanisms!

Re: Speeding

Ass is a fanny in America, if you must slag me then do it proper likes.
I also used "Langer", but you overlooked that, extopia, didnt you.
SO unless you wanna start typing As Gailge then best we use the Americanisims they can rape and pillage a language just like we do.

Re: Speeding

An raibh tú ag tiomáint go tapaigh ?

Re: Speeding

Of course, if i wasnt speeding this wouldnt have happened.


I talked with a friend of mine who is a Garda and he said it would be best if I just paid it, ease of mind and all that.
He explained the good nature of the guy the wrote me the ticket.
And explained that he himself had received a speeding fine a few weeks back and has now got some penalty points of his own, despite having a Garda Uniform (in the car) when caught.

He also pointed out that with my Luck if it went to court I would end up saying something to piss the judge off and end up getting the max.

Thanks for the advice. If you have anything that can completly change my mind, please post.
If not lets see this thread slip slowly to the bottom of this page and on to the number 2 and on to its lowly place in the archive somewhere.

tp, I'm curious to know how the garda measured your speed. As another contributor said, if it was from his own speedo, he'd have to match your speed exactly. Maybe that was easy in this case. I know I was involved in a similar incident a while back; followed and eventually stopped for excessive speed. I was shocked at being caught unawares as I am one of those serial law breakers who use a radar detector most of the time. But on the occasion in question, my trusted device never sounded to warn of any speed trap in operation, even though they were evidently close behind and apparently monitoring my speed. I bricked it so much when they pulled me over that I never thought to check the evidence on their part of my offence. Funnily enough, I never got a summons for the offence, and so to this day wonder if they were actually recording my every move as they said they were. I honestly believe they bluff these charges sometimes, knowing that people are usually too shocked/scared to question them, and even if you do question them, they probably can talk their way out of it easily. Again, they have the upper hand.

Did you pay your fine, or not.
I dont know about the risks of getting summonsed.
Is there anyway to pay up once you get called or is it at the Judges descretion once you get the letter

Funny old life, I just had a bit of a run in with the long arm of the law last night! Must have been all this talking about them!
Anyway, I want advice on this one. As I was passing through a particular town on the way home from work, a garda stepped off the footpath in front of the local station and stopped me. He said he had a complaint about my driving! I asked what the problem was, and was told I passed on a continuous white line. He said hold a minute, the witness is coming behind you and will be here shortly. The witness was also a uniformed garda! He asked did I remember passing a jeep (him) which I did. I protested that where I passed the jeep, the white line was definitely broken, which infuriated him and he took out his book to "bring me to court". I protested again that I was sure the line was broken, at which point he said "you're a genuine fella, drive on and be more careful". I was extremely annoyed about it all night, because I was sure I'd stayed behind that jeep (at about 40 mph) until there was a safe stretch wuth broken white line. And here's the clincher, coming the road this morning, I see that it was a broken white line I crossed! As well as that, I do remember a car similar to mine passing me dangerously earlier on, and I'm now convinced it was that car that passed the jeep dangerously, and not me.
Should I go back in to the garda station this evening to explain this, or just let sleeping dogs lie? I bugs me that I nearly got penalty points for someone elses reckless driving.

Let sleeping dogs lie sunny. It will only bring you grief if you make an issue out of it.

Same thing happened to me about a year ago. Garda car broke red lights with sirens on and pulled me over. Two gardai (straight out of Templewhatchamacallit) stepped up and accused me of breaking a red light. Needless to say I knew that (1) I had gone through a green light and (2) they were lying to me as they couldn't have even seen me go through the light due to where they were. Needless to say it caused me a lot of heartache and I was absolutely furious with them. They were smug little gits and told me they'd see me in court, even though they both knew they wre lying. Nothing ever came of it.

This isn't the only such experience I've had with gardai in Dublin. There's a lot of good ones out there and there's an awful lot of really terrible ones with some real axes to grind. Better to put it behind you I'd say.

I have a gut feeling you're right about letting it go piggy, but as I say, on this occassion I was lucky to be let off, but what if he'd decided to pursue it?? Everyone should be accountable for their actions, and he clearly made a mistake and should make ammends I believe.