Careless Driving Ticket from Civilian

**cmsims1** · 08-03-2008, 05:54 PM

My question involves a careless driving ticket from the State of: Mississippi

I was pulled over in Philadelphia, MS and the cop accused the boys in my car of leaning out of the car windows cussing at other cars. He said that the actions had been called in, but the boys did no such thing. He had us follow him to the station. I asked we could potentially get charged with, and the cop said that we could be charged with profanity.

Along the way, we realized the basis of what must have been the problem. I had realized just in the nick of time that my lane was ending, so I looked in my rear view mirror and over my shoulder and saw noone. So, I began to pull over into the right hand lane. Someone honked, I realized there was another car in that lane, and I pulled back into the left hand lane. The car had been in my blindspot; yukon's (the type of car I was driving) have very large blind spots. The other car proceeded to slow down to give me room to pull over into the right hand lane. I pulled into the lane, and the boy in the passenger seat waved at the other car to thank them for letting me into traffic. I had been driving an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar streets with seven other people in it (It was a yukon, and everyone had a seatbelt.), but I wasn't being careless; I was only unfamiliar. Anyway, none of this involved anyone cussing anyone else.

We followed the cops to the police station, and about an hour later the people who called in the complaint showed up, driving the car that had been in the other lane in the circumstance described above. The two from the car had changed their story by the time they had arrived at the police station. Now, they accused me of careless driving, and they were unwilling to talk things over. The civilian driving the other car acted as the affiant, writing me a traffic violation! And, he had changed his story from profanity to careless driving! And, the mistake I made was not careless, but a mistake that any reasonable man would have made.

It seemed that the affiant told the cops that the people in my car were cussing them just so that they would pull us over and take us to the station. Afterwards, the affiant dropped that story completely.

I will be defending myself in court. How should I best defend myself? Should How should I expect to fair in court? I look into driving school instead?

**lwpat** · 08-04-2008, 04:54 AM

Unless the other party is local, it is unlikley they will show for ocurt and they will have to drop the citation. The officer did not see the incident and can only testify from personal knowledge or what you admitted.