NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Archives for August 2006

Myth Busted: Getting out of a speeding ticket

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I found out I couldn’t get out of a speeding ticket the way I hoped. Apparently the law concerning delaying a trial has changed in favor of the courts.

The plan was to keep delaying the court date until both officers involved in clocking and catching me didn’t show up. I asked several employees of the court, a lawyer and a judge how the process worked, and I got the same conclusion.

What makes it hard now is:

1.) You may ask for a continuance of the trial on a later date, but it’s at the discretion of the judge to grant it. I was told by the judge herself that she RARELY grants continuances on the same day unless for a VERY VERY good reason, which I most likely didn’t have.

2.) If the officer(s) provide an excuse for now showing up (basically they just have to say they’re on duty), the trial may still proceed even without them. This is probably better for society as a whole, because while I’m just trying to circumvent a ticket, I’m effectively taking a law enforcer off the street.

The court clerk told me they’ve basically shut down that particular loophole in the system.

So $160 later, I’m taking deferred adjudication. Now I must take defensive driving again and avoid a ticket for the next three months.

Speeding Ticket Experiment

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I’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on speeding tickets, parking tickets, defensive driving, deferred adjudication etc. over the years…pretty much wasted money.

I’ve heard a million different people tell me about ways to weasel out of a ticket, and with the latest ticket I got this week, I’m going to give it a try.

I was caught doing 15 mph over the limit in a speed trap, meaning one officer clocked my speed, then another one pulled me over.

What I’ve heard over and over but without any FIRST PERSON EVIDENCE is that you contest the ticket, and if the officers don’t show, the ticket is dismissed. I’ve heard this is typically what lawyers do to get tickets dismissed…if the officer shows up for the hearing, they reschedule up to three times until the officer is unavailable on one of the three occasions. I figure

I could give this a try instead of immediately having to pay $300+ for the deferred adjudication process. If I’m not completely mistaken, this is the way I think the Texas traffic system works:

I’ll test my luck with this because there were TWO officers involved….meaning if both don’t show up, the ticket gets dismissed……I think.

I’ve already taken defensive driving once this year, so my only option is doing deferred adjudication which means not getting a ticket for 6-12 months….or else you pay for BOTH tickets. You still have to pay a fee for the “privilege” of going on D.A. and another fee when you complete it.

One of my concerns is knowing how the officers have shown up. Do I wait in the courtroom, wait till I see them both, then just leave? The court isn’t far from me, so I might go do a little recon work first and sit in on some trials, maybe speak to a few lawyers about their methods.

I want to find out once and for all if this is actually a viable (although time consuming) method of getting a ticket dismissed!

Change Email Address

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It’s about time I change my old school email address. Nev@mail.utexas.edu just doesn’t look all that professional….although sometimes it’s good to email someone with a school email address…(Like on Craigslist).

Currently I am starting to use NevMed@gmail.com

However, an email such as nev@enwon.com would create more exposure because people will often type in www.enwon.com when they see the email.

I was also thinking of nev@neville1.com…Ideally I’d like nev@nev.com or something along those lines, but Nev.com and Neville.com have been taken and not-selling for years!

Now I have to change all my email addresses from all sorts of places before it expires!

I’ll also eventually have to change this business card. I don’t really care for cool business cards, I prefer the free ones from VistaPrint!

Making up for being absent

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It’s been a full month since the last entry, and I feel like I should have tracked it better. I kind of wish this blog was private so I could actually write everything that goes on, but it’s still nice to share.

Anyhow, I was in California for 2 1/2 weeks for business/fun, and the trip was very successful. I spent a total of $2,100 which was slightly over budget, and rings in an average of $123/day. I still feel that’s a lot, because I didn’t pay a cent the entire trip for housing (Thanks to awesome friends).

During the trip I spent over $600 on rental cars. I had to make sure I got full insurance coverage on all the cars since I recently got in a wreck, plus I’m under 25, generally meaning an extra $25 per day….plus you have to fill up your own gas.

My rental car for 21 days after the wreck was taken care of by the insurance company, but I had to pay $315 for the extra insurance ($15/day). I made sure to take this, because if I wrecked the rental WITHOUT insurance, I’d be doubly screwed.

Soon as I got back to Austin, I realized my lease on my summer apartment had expired! I got back to Austin at 1:00am on a Sunday night, and the apartment management had threatened to move my stuff out of the apartment by THAT NIGHT. Obviously I haggled here and there and eventually got them to slightly extend my stay for free, but I needed an apartment FAST.

Craigslist came to the rescue. I now have a larger room in a nearby apartment for only $270/month…and I paid out the entire lease up front, so all the way until December I don’t have to pay a monthly rent. Total was $945 till December 1st, 2006.

Unfortunately I had to move IMMEDIATELY when I got back to Austin, but the Camry was gone, so fortunately my parents gave me their spare van to use for the move. Also with a temporary car to use, I don’t have to go car shopping immediately. Plus I also have my scooter and bicycle to use….and legs….and the buses.

The van actually came in handy because I needed to move quick in one trip, I don’t think the Camry would have fit all my stuff (even though I have very little). It’s not the most fun thing to drive, but it does get me around having to buy a new car immediately! Here’s my new pickup line: