Court

Well, that was interesting.
I got to court, checked in, another lady there for the same thing: defend a photo radar ticket.
She didn't have a clue.
I gave her some help - her citation had been "signed" by the computer.
We were out waiting and were called in.
The judge - actually not a judge, it was a hearing officer, was pleasant enough.
The redflex employee was sitting there as well.
However, this court was totally different than everything I have read about going to court to defend this type of ticket: the Justice of the Peace set it up so that a DPS officer MUST be in the court room giving the presentation. The Redflex employee is there as additional testimony.

Well, that would have blown my defense about the contract that Redflex has with the State being ended and the Redflex employee having no business representating the State because of it - right out of the water. I had plenty more, however, I wasn't worried.

Well, the DPS officer wasn't there. Apparently, they hadn't been there all day long. The hearing officer, the bailiff and the Redflex employee - required to be there since there were scheduled appearances, were doing nothing.

The lady was up first. The HO stated to her that it was required to wait 15 minutes after the hearing was supposed to start. If the DOT officer didn't show up, walaah, case dismissed. We sat there and talked about all kinds of things. 15 minutes passed, she was declared not responsible for the ticket. She was, however, required to pay the $40 process server fee.

I was appalled. How can they charge you a process server fee when your case is dismissed? The STATE should have to pay that fee since THEY lost and by their OWN doings: their representative didn't show up!!

My 15 minutes comes and goes. I spent the entire time going over my notes: if this person shows up at the last minute, I am going to be ready.
Didn't happen. My case is dismissed, but, I still have to pay the process server fee. I asked the hearing officer about it: WHY? He didn't know. I wasn't going to go all nuttied about it: I just got out of a $201.50 fine (and would have had to pay the process server fee on top of that) and more importantly, points do not go on my record.

So, I'll let that one go. AS probably everyone does. I have more at stak than most people: points on my commercial driver's license. NOT a good thing.

So, it's over. I won't be getting any more photo tickets from the freeway since they shut the cameras down. For the record, when I'm driving the semi, I might push the speed limit, but by only a couple miles per hour, 5 at the most. I got the ticket while driving my car.

I won on a technicality that I didn't even think of.

I would go on, but my keyboard is giving me serious problems. I need to replace it - again.

G'day.

ben