Fighting a Ticket in Oregon

[chadontheroad]

Hi, I am a canadian driver who just recieved a speeding ticket in Oregon state. I was in the "safety corridor" of Hwy 20 just outside of Newport. The officer states that I was travelling at a speed of 81mph. This is absolutely not true! I spent the rest of my day heading home to Canada discussing with my brother how it was not possible for us to be travelling that speed considering the condition of the road, the foul weather, the size of my truck, and the off-road tires that it has on it. If we were going that fast, we would not be getting a ticket, we would be getting a funeral!

The officer writing the ticket was friendly and hospitable, but still handed me a ticket for 484 dollars. He gave me a month till my court date, and now i need to know what to do??? It's a 9 hour drive for me to get back there, and I don't have the time. Can I get an attorney to go for me?

Also, the ticket that was issued is FULL of errors. The officer did not correctly note my birthdate, the color of my eyes, or the date of the offence for that matter. He did make a mistake on the date of the appearance, but corrected it with his pen before giving me the copy. All of the other inconsistencies were left unchanged. Where I am from, this could get a ticket thrown out of court. What about Lincoln County, Oregon???

Thanks for any help with this.

[seniorjudge]

Did you have a defense to the ticket?

[chadontheroad]

I am not sure what you mean, Seniorjudge. I did mention all these factors to the officer, I told him that i was sure that i was going much slower than he stated, i told him that the predominant measure on my spedometer was in kilometers and that my tires were oversized. That may have affected my speed by 5 miles an hour at most! But the fact of the matter is that I was supposedly clocked going 81 MPH which is absolutely not the case. Is that a defense??? I don't know. If it is, then let's go with that, if not... can I work this bogus ticket angle to my advantage?

Thanks for the response!

[lwpat]

Check to see if Oregon reports to Canada. My information is they do not. While I understand your situation about the ticket you may be better off to just pay it. From what I understand Lincoln County is a very well known speed trap. You can check with the court and see if they allow a mailed in trial by declaration. Some Oregon courts do have this procedure.

[chadontheroad]

The back of the ticket says that I have the option of entering a plea of Not Guilty by written appearance and contacting the court clerk to determine if I qualify for a trial by affidavit. (lol the ticket has a spelling error in the text on the back!)

So, is this what you mean, or should I just send in the 500 bucks? OUCH! and choose Guilty or No contest (maybe???) by written appearance. As far as I know Oregon and British Columbia have no agreement for traffic offences or records.

I just feel like I am getting screwed, and I shouldn't have to pay this much money. I can tell you it's definitely a conflict with the dept of tourism!

[lwpat]

You have nothing to lose by going written route and 500 to gain.

[chuckycheese]

That's quite a lot of money. Are you planning on returning to Oregon???

[SpeedingInOregon]

I have just found myself in a similar situation: Canadian, clocked at 68 mph in a 45 "safety" zone (although trooper revised this to 68 in a 55 zone).
Did you fight this ticket, and if so, what was the outcome?

[NotSpeedingSpeedingTicket]

I live in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, not too far from where you got your ticket. I, too, was told I was doing 80, but on I-5 in a standard 65 zone back in April of this year. I had my cruise control set to 65 in my 1983 Toyota Camry commuter car. State Trooper pulls me over, says he paced me at 80. Not even radar! After I literally stopped laughing, I told him about my C.C. and that I seriously doubt my nearly 300,000 mile car, trunk loaded with tools, low compression in one cylinder, could even go that fast (esp. on flat ground), and surely I would notice if it got even close. He wrote me a ticket anyway. I attempted to research online to fight my ticket, but got very little useful info if you actually did not break the law. My rag-tag defense was easily crushed a couple weeks ago when the judge informed me the trooper needed only to prove a preponderance, or 51%, of evidence. I had not been able to track down whether it was criminal (beyond a reasonable doubt) or civil (preponderance) during my research; only that some states made it civil. To sum it up, Trooper's opinion is worth more than mine. I felt completely violated and helpless. At least I wasn't convicted of rape or muder or something horrible like that, but preponderance seems like guilty until proven innocent. I was attempting to track down contact info for the judge, because I'm still not over it, when I stumbled across this website. Sure wish I had a couple months ago. Sorry to commiserate, but maybe some of this helps. FYI, I have received 2 speeding tickets while traveling to and from California over the years and neither has shown up on my Oregon record. I just mailed my checks. In college, I got a parking ticket in Vancouver, BC and never paid it nor received any correspondence from them either. Good luck!