Speeding Ticket Case Studies

Just a speeding ticket heads up for all truckers who unfortunately have to travel into California. Under orders by the governor, the CHP is now targeting trucks as never before. It amounts to a tax/toll for driving their highways via speeding ticket revenue. My husband got a traffic ticket in downtown LA during rush hour for 62 mph. Anyone who travels at that hour knows that you can barely do 55 mph let alone 62 mph. The motorcycle cop told him the governor has given them orders to slow trucks down. The officer also wrote "agressive" on the ticket. We are still waiting for the fine, no doubt that one comment will make it substantial. They are ticketing whether or not you're speeding as it would seem to help California with their budget. Next on the list is lane violations. They obviously want all trucks in the right lane doing 55 mph. Can anyone in California spell g-r-i-d-l-o-c-k? One has to wonder.

Philadelphia Takes Drivers Trucks

Truck-involved accidents in the Philadelphia area are reportedly down 69 percent, but two trucking associations may file a civil rights lawsuit over the impoundments, which one industry spokeswoman called an "abuse of power," AP quoted an area newspaper as saying.

Gail Toth, director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, which along with its sister association in Pennsylvania is threatening to sue, also called the practice "unconstitutional," AP said. The news service said since April 2001, 1,603 trucks have been pulled off the road and impounded for safety violations, the most common being faulty brakes. Philadelphia's traffic ticket court is using a never-before-used 1999 law allowing impoundment of unsafe trucks. And, AP said, under that law a special "truck detail" may stop any truck for inspection without cause. If the tickets written amount to more than $250, the vehicle is impounded and the driver has to go to court and pay fines and court costs in addition to paying for the towing, paperwork and other costs involved.

Traffic Court Administrative Judge Fortunato Perri said he was using the 1999 law as a "tool" never used before but that the safety at stake justified the methods. Of 950 inspections made from Jan. 1 to March 1, 330 trucks were impounded with fines of $250 or more, AP reported. In 2001, there were 39 truck crashes on interstates running through Philadelphia, compared with 128 crashes in 2000, AP said. But that may be because trucks are detouring around the city to avoid the impoundment law, AP said. Toth maintained the law is putting truckers out of business.

Judge Let Off For Excessive Truck Driver Fines

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct slapped Pavilion Town Justice Lawrence Reid in Genesee County with the censure after he wrote in a town newsletter that truckers' fines for traffic tickets were on the increase and would continue to increase until the drivers realized it wasn't worth a trip through the small town, AP said.

The judge had fined truck drivers between $50 and $70 more than the highest amount allowed by the state for a speeding ticket to keep them from using Routes 63 and 19 through Pavilion, AP reported. Reid said he was trying to promote town safety.

Reid maintained that he was right and that voters had reelected him this past November knowing about the fines. He told AP his practice of targeting truckers was general knowledge "around town" but declined to go into detail about the case, the news service said.

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