Doctor_Zaius13

Doctor_Zaius13 t1_j9we87g wrote

This.

It's not some kind of systematic racism to require drivers to be licensed and cars to be registered and insured. If you have that stuff squared away, you remove 90% of the reasons to get pulled over.

And most of the time, if you get pulled over for something easily fixable, get it fixed asap, save all receipts and take timestamped pictures of everything, and fight the ticket in traffic court.

I got pulled over in the UES about two and a half years ago for "dirty" plates, which admittedly were in the initial stages of delamination, but still very legible. The cop made an accusation of me spraying some kind of reflective stuff on them to block the roll cameras and wrote me a ticket with I think a $175+ fine (maybe more, I don't remember).

As soon as I got back to my neighborhood, I bought a newspaper and used the dated cover as a timestamp to show the conditions of the plates on the day of the ticket. I also went on the DMVs website, which conveniently had a section acknowledging their orange plates were peeling, and had instructions on replacing them for free online. I took screenshots of everything related to the state admitting the orange plates were crap, as well as all receipts/ correspondence to show I was making the effort to "correct" the issue.

Printed everything out to give myself as many avenues to argue my case... And waited and waited as my court date kept getting pushed back.

Once I finally had my court date, last summer, the judge had me state my case and present evidence. The first thing I held up was my 8.5 x 11 printout of my plate, and the judge dismissed it instantly.

The only downside was that it was real traffic court, with a set appearance time, so I had to take a day off work.

But long story short, even if you get pulled over for something stupid, be respectful and then do whatever you can/ need to in order to rectify the situation so you can shove it up their asses later.

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