>It's true that if you take it to court you will most likely win. I got a
>speeding ticket and went to the driving school and the school had done a survey over a year (Jan90 to Jan91) and they found that 85% of the time if you take
>the ticket to court you will win. The reason being is that the courtdate is
>usually like 2 months after the ticket and the officer isnt allowed to bring
>notes into court with him so he/she wont have as much knowledge of the ticket
>as you will be(you can bring notes) and most judges will throw a petty anty
>ticket out because of the obscurity and lack of enforcement of such a fine.
I think the SF parking stuff is not handled in the same kind of court as
speeding tickets - I went to an "instant hearing" once at SF City Hall to
fight a ticket, and they don't bother trying to call in the officer who
wrote the ticket. The judge basically let me off on my word, on a ticket
for supposedly parking on the sidewalk when I never got a ticket on my
car and never recalled parking on a sidewalk.
On the other hand, your odds in a hearing for a ticket where the cop has to
show are different. You might get let off if the cop doesn't show. You might
try postponing iat the last minute. A traffic school instructor told me
he tried this - he effectively got the court date postponed nearly a year.
He also went and took photos of the NO U TURN sign during day and evening
(using different film sppeds so he could make the night shot really dark
and grainy...). The cop showed up and though the judge was impressed by the
photos the cop recounted the other illegal moves the guy had pulled before
the U turn (backing up after a wrong right hand turn, backing across two
lanes of traffic though an intersection into a left turn lane so he could
make the U turn). In this case the cop recalled it in detail nearly a year
later and the guy didn't get off.
There is a book on fighting speeding tickets, I think published by Nolo
press. I guy I work with bought it and fought one and the cop didn't show
up in court so it was dismissed.
BTW, back to the parking meter thread, I was at a party a SOMA apt. this
weekend and saw the remnants of a parking meter being used as a kitchen
timer for cooking. So perhaps those busted meters can be recycled. :^)
