Wrong Plate Number on a Ticket

[njdriver2011]

My GF's car was broken and I let her borrow my car for the night. She left my apartment and drove 3 blocks down the street and was pulled over for not having her lights on. Her car has day time running lamps and mine does not so she forgot to put them on.

Also in my car i keep a bag with insurance cards and registration cards. The cop watched as my GF looked through this bag with multiple cards (i left a few old registration cards in it) and he handed her one that was expired. He came back 15 minutes later with a ticket for failure to maintain lamps $54 and failure to produce registration documents $180. He did not come back to the car to ask if one of the other cards was valid which it was.

The last 2 weeks we have been looking in the online system for the ticket to get the info and couldn't find it. We looked at the tickets again and realized the reason was he entered my car's plate # wrong (he put bx instead of xb), the ticket also has GF's driver license number.

Do I have any chance in getting these tickets dismissed? Should I not waste my time and just pay online? I thought there could be some defense as there is not any way to link her to this car and he wrote the wrong plate #.

[free9man]

You mean does she have any chance of getting them dismissed? The first one is very likely to stick. She is responsible for the proper operation of the vehicle. DRLs are for daytime, you are still supposed to turn on your regular headlights at night as that is often how the other lights on the vehicle are activated. The failure to produce registration documents I don't know about. The judge may dismiss the charge if she brings the proof that it was insured at the time of the stop to court with her. She may still have to pay court costs if it is dismissed. Notice those are all mays, meaning the judge doesn't have to. The plate number being wrong is a non-starter, I wouldn't even try it.

The ticket should have her license number on it as she is the one operating the vehicle at the time of the stop.

[njdriver2011]

It was for registration expired not insurance, which the cop can easily tell from looking up the car even to check if it is registered, which is why i don't know why he didnt have the common dignity to ask if she gave the right card seeing that she searched through the cards in front of him and she was not driving her own car.

So if i decide to plead guilty and goto court for this, can i just bring the registration card that expired in june (the ticket was in may) as proof the car was registered? I recently got the new june 2011 registration card. Or do I need to go to the DMV and get proof the car was registered already, since the card expired in june and the ticket was in may i dont think there would be a way to get a new card in the few weeks between the time of the ticket and court date with the june 2011 as the expiration (or is there)?

[Mr. Knowitall]

As you were told when you posted, laws vary by state. You chose not to follow the instruction to identify your state. Call the court and ask if you can get a dismissal with proof that you were insured at the time of the incident.

[njdriver2011]

I put the state in the title, I didn't realize someone was going to change the title of the post otherwise I would have stated it in the post

Re: Nj: Wasn't Driving My Car, Wrong Plate Number

NJ = New Jersey