BUMPY RIDE
‘It’s not my car,’ rages driver who got ticket from city 1,000 miles away – they keep getting $75 fines over the mistake
He owns a Hyundai, but not the kind ticketed three states over
AN elderly man received several $75 tickets for failure to pay multiple speeding tickets - he'd never been to the state the tickets came from.
After getting a notice to appear in court, he's worried he'll be hauled off to jail.
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Joan and Randall Paulsen, an elderly couple living in Omaha, Nebraska started getting speeding tickets in the mail for a car in Atlanta, Georgia in April.
What struck her was the license plate for her Hyundai Santa Fe matched the car's plates in the photos from Georgia.
The car pictured was also a Hyundai, but her car was not a sporty sedan.
"It’s the same number, but it’s not my car," Joan told NBC affiliate WOWT.
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The other puzzling fact was that the couple had never been to Georgia, let alone thousands of miles from home.
"I’ve never been to Atlanta, I drive to the grocery store," she said.
They'd hope the third party issuing the speeding tickets would notice the registered address and vehicle models didn't match the plates.
However, violations kept coming - followed by a $75 fee for failure to pay the previous fines.
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Randall is the registered owner of Joan's SUV and was worried sick when he got a letter to appear in court, complete with a hearing date.
He called and told court officials he wouldn't make it, but he's worried it won't be enough.
I got a $300 speeding ticket from a city I've never visited - they threatened to sue if I don't pay, and we're not alone
"He’s afraid they’re going to take him to jail because we didn’t show up in court, and I’m sure not going to drive to Atlanta, Georgia to tell you I’m not guilty," she said.
Randall is 81 years old, and fears he'll be in handcuffs before he can prove he's innocent.
"I’m scared that they’ll send a legal document up that forces Nebraska to arrest me and transfer me down to Atlanta," he said.
Joan noticed the license plate frame on the car in Atlanta covers much of the state's name, which could lead the vendor to assume the car belonged to Randall in Nebraska.
How to fight a speeding ticket
According to a legally reviewed post, there are five effective strategies to fighting a speeding ticket if it was wrongfully issued.
- If pulled over and issued a ticket, drivers can argue or dispute a driver's personal opinion. When issuing a speeding ticket, an officer is required to write their opinion and come to an "objective" conclusion. If the ticket was written based on that judgment, it can be contested. An example would be if you were going 75 mph in a 65 mph zone because others were traveling at the same speed, you could argue that it would be more dangerous to travel at 65 mph.
- You can dispute the officer's presentation of evidence. If you were ticketed for something like running a stop sign or making an illegal u-turn, you can't contest that if an officer saw you, but you can call things into court like eyewitnesses, diagrams, or photos.
- Argue that the ticket was issued by a "mistake of fact." This is tricky, but a "mistake of fact" is a mistake made by a driver about a situation that was beyond their control, or if a driver legitimately did not know they were violating the law. For example, you were driving in two lanes because the lane markers were so worn down that you could not see them.
- You could say circumstances justified your driving. You could say you were speeding to pass a possibly drunk driver, or avoiding an accident by rapidly changing lanes. However, the argument won't work if there's proof you continued to speed after passing.
- Similar to the above, it could be argued that speeding was necessary to avoid harm. The key is to argue that if you weren't speeding, you or someone else could have been harmed.
- Consult a traffic attorney, if all else fails. Many have free consultations to decide whether or not there's a case.
Source: FindLaw
She told the outlet she'd tried to call various agencies and organizations for help but had faced numerous dead ends.
"When I talk to anybody, I get absolutely nowhere," she said.
"It makes me very mad. It makes me uneasy that I have to fight for something that I didn’t do, and this has been going on since April."
WOWT reporters contacted Atlanta's municipal court administrator on the Paulsens' behalf.
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They told state officials the couple had never been to Georgia, and asked for their case to be examined.
Not long after they were contacted a representative confirmed the matter was being investigated.