Thanks again for the great advice. I've visited with Jay on the phone today. Thanks again.
Quote from Reardan Tom on April 19, 2020, 8:40 pmGeez, Smitty, sounds like you'd throw him under the bus. He might as well go play nice with the judge with his ducks in a row and Jay's help or what ever help he can get the if the judge throws him under the bus so be it. Why give up without a fight? A nice, polite fight, but a fight none the less....
No , I have broken the rules a few times in my life. Paid my fines and moved on. You know when you done wrong. As I said if the car came up and went back down no foul . But you know when you kept it up and flew it . I have done it will do it again. And if I get caught I will pay up .
If anything look to have the charge changed . That is often easy to do if you take that approach first. But go in with the I did nothing wrong , you chance of getting the words changed go away quickly. Lot of how it goes depends on the state. 25 years ago I was on a back road in Missouri middle of no where headers open play with carb adjustments . He wrote me a stack of tickets. Totaled $500 . When I go back up here Called the DA. Explained it to him. Told him I done wrong the officer was right on every ticket. He said I will call it a parking ticket if you want long as the check is good I had 14 days to pay. I have a $500 parking ticket in Missouri on file some where.
OK, I gave you a thumbs up for the clarification Smitty. If we were sitting eye to eye, I'd tell you an experience of spilling a load of hay on the road in a decreasing radius corner. State patrol put my old truck out of service and cited me. I got to meet a Chelan County judge.
You guys make me LOL.
Here is an update for those of you that might be wondering how it turned out. Jay did a great job giving me expert video testimony on Zoom. We were able to demonstrate that the state would have an uphill battle getting a reckless driving charge to stick. They would have been required to show "willful and wanton disregard for safety". The cop wrote in his notes that the chair was 3.5 feet in the air, which isn't possible since the left exhaust makes contact at 2 feet. The DA agreed to a lesser charge of driving a disfunctional vehicle, required training class, 2 point ticket and $470 in court costs and fines. The cops have a lot of discretion on the charges they can bring and it costs a lot of money to fight.
As an interesting side note, I shot video demonstrating how I can fly the chair with precision and control in my empty church parking lot in preparation for a trial. I did turns to the left and right, a stop/go demonstration etc. Guess who showed up and gave me the stink eye? Needless to say, I wrapped up my filming and stopped before I received another ticket. That is on private property you say? Well, in Colorado, the police can write tickets for reckless driving on private property too.
So all in costs: $1,400 lawyer, $470 fines and fees, $150 driving class, $60 document prep. = $2,080. but still a lot cheaper than paying higher rates for insurance for many years. Needless to say, I won't be flying the chair again.
Thanks for the update. I'am not going to say no more.
