Originally Posted by
Gump
As a former ST. Pete officer I say hahaha. Do you people have any idea how many cops live on 4th and 9th street. It is simply amazing to me that all you youngsters (i'm being nice here) are still getting in trouble for this stupid $h1t. We have 4 tracks within 1 hour of Tampa and none of them charge more than $20 bucks to run all night long.
As for contesting a $30 dollar ticket don't make me laugh. Or better yet please do. I gaurantee that no judge in ST. Pete is going to take your side on this matter. And by the way if you think that you can beat the ticket by trying to get a court date while the officer is unavailable your also dreaming. There is this cool little document called an affidavit (some of you may have heard of them), the officers affidavit is just as good as his/her physical presence or testimony in a court of law, but since St Pete pays its officers jack (which is why I'm not on that particular force any longer) you can almost guaruantee that that the officer will show up for court to gain the free 2 hours of double pay he get just for showing up. The real fun part for those of you who contest the ticket and then lose is that not only will the city collect the money for the violation, but since you have now wasted the time of the court and the officer you will most likely be billed for the overtime, the judges time, any radio/transmission fee's and a whole plethora of fees that you never knew existed. Turning your $30 dollar fee into a $300+ fee.
Stop violating the law and you want get fined. Stop going to places where others are violating the law and you want get fined. Stop contributing to and in events that kill way to many innocents. Go to the track, its close, its cheap, its legal, and you even get proof that you cheap honda civic whooped that twin turbo 800hp toyota supra.
Good points, none the less some of the tickets were issued unlawfully. I contested mine with the issuing officer, and got it removed before making it to court. Only reason I pulled over there (and was there for at most 20 minutes.) is to see what everything was about. The real people getting tickets should be the people street racing. Not the people just checking out parked cars.
If the police Dept wanted to do something about the street racing, and would let people gather with a police presence, then this would be in the interest of public safety. No racing would take place, but people could hang out and have their own free car show. (Which is why most of the people are there.)
Also it is not a wise Idea to ticket a person for parking when the brake lights are lit up, and the person is obviously in the car, and the car is in motion. Half the tickets issued were haphazardly issued with no initial glance at what dictates parking. I got mine removed because I know the laws, and ordinances, and I was not in any violation of any when the mail in ticket was issued. Lesson was learned and I never went back. There is a great legal venue in riverview, at lowes where everyone can hang out, and no one get in trouble.