Racing, Reckless Driving, Super Speeder.
 

So yesterday me and my girl were going to Publix to get dinner and my lunch for the week. I’m going up a divided highway, and the right lane is full and everyone is driving under the speed limit. The left lane is open so that’s the path I took. I was going at the time 60ish. The speed limit is 60. This red charger gets behind and starts to ride my ass. So I give in and go a bit faster as he was making me and my girl uncomfortable with how close he was riding. When we get to a point where he can go around me a cop on the other side of the highway is going over a hill. And comes into line of sight. At that point I was going 70-75 no faster than 80 miles an hour though. He immediately blips his lights and busts a u turn. I figured he was going to pull over the Charger. I had slowed back down to the speed limit at that point so I kept on driving but he hit his siren so I pulled over behind the Charger. As the cop pulls up to me the Charger takes off. The cop does nothing. Gets out of his car and asks for my license. When he comes back I’m getting arrested for Reckless driving, going 32 over the speed limit, and racing. None of which was I doing, as my girl flips out if I do anything fun in the car with her. He got another officer to “try to find the Charger.” But that never happened. I bailed out last night. So now I’m scrambling to figure out what I can do. Lawyers are expensive. I do know how radar works though. I’m 100% positive he hit the Charger who was definitely going that fast and because I pulled over and the Charger got away he said I was going that fast. Since the Charger is bigger than my car and sped around me that’s gotta be what the radar hit. Also I’m thinking that they can’t technically charge me with racing if I don’t have a co-defendant. Then there’s the big grey blanket term of reckless driving. Like what do I do about that? The guy was riding my ass. I tried to explain it to this guy and he wasn’t hearing it. Just hauled me to the jail and I sat there for about 4 hours before my girl bonded me out. So any advice? Any one else been in this situation? Also I live in Georgia. This shit sucks.


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Dude that fucking sucks bro sorry to hear you’re in this shitty situation. Must be so frustrating. Luckily never been in that situation so I don’t know what I would do. I mean you have your girl as a witness at least. Do you have a dash cam or something where you can maybe find the Charger’s plates or show that you really weren’t going that fast? You could try to ask for them to show their police footage and the radar information stuff. Lawyer would be your best bet, honestly. Wish you the best man. Also, be careful of what you post on the matter. They can get you for any little thing

Well I don’t have social media except for Instagram and with my legal name not being affiliated with this forum I doubt they’re going to pull anything. But it just sucks all around. And no I don’t have a dash cam. And I don’t really know how to file a discovery for that information. I definitely need to get a lawyer it’s just the matter of coming up with the money.


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See if there is any Pro Bono representation available through the court system. They're better than nothing.

Show up to court, dress nice (at a minimum slacks, belt, and button down shirt), be polite and proper, minimize slang, tell the whole truth that's relevant to the incident, agree to traffic school and eat the speeding ticket and pray they drop the reckless and racing charges.

Lesson learned, keep your cool, slot into the slower traffic when an asshole shows up behind you or just ride it out and slow down even more to make sure you don't have to jam on the brakes and get rear ended, 'Defensive Driving' used to be a common phrase.

Good luck buddy.

^ what he said.

humfrz

That’s true. Like I said, not really an expert on the legal stuff, but just throwing out ideas on how to get evidence. I think @strat61caster is right on this one. Just take the ticket and fight the reckless driving and street racing which hopefully won’t be TOO hard. Best of luck

He busted a U-turn? Was the Officer driving? Did he actually even have you on RADAR/LIDAR? Some systems can work while they are moving but sometimes they just make stuff up too. Do you have a RADAR and/or LIDAR detector? Was it going nuts or dead quiet? Does it say on the ticket the method used to determine your speed? Did you admit to the Officer you were speeding? Did you give a specific number? I mean you could have been doing 65 in a 60 in a fast looking car or maybe not even 60! Now if he nailed you with a LIDAR gun that takes a picture of your plate doing 86 mph you're in a different situation. If you don't know the other guy and weren't driving competitively than obviously you weren't racing and/or being reckless which is why I think maybe the Officer may be using the "shotgun" method where they throw the book at you and see what sticks.

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Any businesses along the path this happened? Maybe they caught something with outside security cams. This whole situation makes me comforted in knowing I just bought a dash cam just last week.
Going forward, you know what your next purchase is now at least. The camera would have been all you needed to walk away clean from this.

If you think you can handle it yourself represent yourself. Don't walk into the courtroom without being fully ready. They give you an allotted time until court time and extra time if you ask/needed.

I have done so for a red light ticket and won. Not only didn't get the ticket but got them to actually change the timing in the lights because I contacted the DOT engineers who built the road and the yellow light timing
wasn't long enough for the grade of the road leading up to the light. In other words I didn't go in there not know what to expect. I caught them with their pants down, didn't get a ticket and made them all looks like idiots in the process.
I also did the same with my custody battle 20 years ago. My boy's Mom had a lawyer, I didn't, and I made everybody including and especially Mom look like an idiot in there because I came in prepared like I was going to war.

Lawyers get paid good to make stuff like this go away. If you don't have money maybe borrow some from a friend/relative if the cost to defend you properly is less than the cost if you're found guilty. That cost if guilty is the fine for the ticket and reckless driving and also the big one your insurance rates going up A LOT. If your unsure of being able to make that judge see how you aren't guilty, lawyer up.

Edit: Just realized you said the Charger took off as the cop came up. If that cop was running his dash camera properly and when those lights come on it should be, then he actually might have the footage you need to
show your side of the story to the judge. If you have a decent record and with that on film and your passenger backing your story, it already sounds not too bad.

I got a ticket for racing once when I was literally all alone. I was at a red light in the left hand turning lane. The light turns green and I accelerate briskly but not all out and when a reached 40mph (the speed limit) I stopped accelerating. Turns out there was a cop at the same intersection that saw me take off and pull me over for “racing”. I ask him who I was racing and he said there doesn’t have to be another party. I didn’t even get a speeding ticket because I wasn’t even speeding. The cop was a douche bag too telling me about how his 95 Mustang GT would smoke my ricer car. At the time I was in an Integra GS-R that ran a 14.2 1/4mi and would most likely smoke his GT unless it was modded. I just ignored him.

So you say super speeded fine and Publix. Must live in south GA. I got a super speeder fine there once when headed up to Savannah. Kind of ridiculous to tack on another $200 on time of an already ridiculously expensive ticket.

Good luck with your situation.

The ticket says vasqar and radar but then he highlighted radar. And I asked to see the gun but he didn’t show me but he supposedly “recalibrated” it 1 minute before the offense. It sounds like he’s trying to fuck me. Unfortunately in the state of Georgia I could be looking at jail time.


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Mcdonough/Hampton area.


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Also I did say that I couldn’t have been going more than 80 to the cop.


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And there’s no cameras on the highway unfortunately the only thing that’s going to show anything is when he was passing on the opposite side of the highway and when he did his u turn and pulled us over.


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