Well somebody was looking out for me today
 

I had to travel from AL to Nashville TN today for a meeting, we left at 7 AM in pouring down rain. Just over the TN border with no cars anywhere around us my buddy's car hydroplaned and we left the interstate at 70 mph sideways. after 2 180 deg spins we came to a stop in the middle without a scratch. It took the Trooper 1 hour to get there upon which the Trooper wrote my coworker a ticket that cost him more than the towing bill from TN back to AL...for loss of control of the vehicle ??

Puzzled at who this is protecting

Dwight

Glad you are both okay!

As far as the ticket, obviously, your buddy did lose control of the vehicle. No question the ticket was appropriate in my opinion. He was clearly going too fast for conditions, and when he lost it he couldn't regain control. It's fortunate that you or others weren't injured from him losing control. Hopefully he learned from this experience, and won't make the same mistake again. The officer is trying to protect the motoring public, including you.

You said you came to rest without a scratch; was that the occupants of the car, or the car as well? If the car wasn't hurt, why was it towed? I'm just curious.

31st of the month, quota.... just sayin.

Glad your OK and all is sell. Could have ended much worse.

So why was the car towed?


Here, it would be 'Careless Driving'. my wife got one.
Your friend deserved his ticket.

We are without a scratch. Very sore from the centrifuge effect...the car is totaled

Why did you even need to call a trooper ???

Next time tell the trooper you did the spin on purpose...so therefore no loss of control... lol.... may get other tickets but not that kind. lol All kidding aside, glad you guys are well and no one else was hurt in the process. Cars can be fixed or replaced - people can't !

That would be why your friend was charged.

Glad to hear you were both uninjured, there could have had much more serious consequences than a wrecked car.

To me it's like an officer responding to a suicide and then writing the widow a citation for discharge of a firearm

I could see a something vague like "Driving too fast for conditions".

Just my guess...it probably took the Trooper an hour to get there because there are very few of us for a whole lot of ground to cover. Especially in inclement weather.

Loss of control of a vehicle? If your buddy was doing 70 mph in pouring down rain, you bet. You guys are lucky to be alive. The speed limits are called limits for a reason. In inclement weather you should be nowhere near them and now you know why. You should be glad your buddy is able to complain about his ticket instead of wondering why he couldn't have slowed down while he was at your funeral. Happened to a kid this morning who now has to spend the rest of his life regretting his mistake.

Didn't mean to get preachy, just trying to give the opposite perspective. Glad you are both ok. Money and cars? Replaceable. People are not.

If there were such things, I'd be whacking you on the 1st so I could take the rest of the month off. Just sayin.

That was a cheap arse ticket. If the cop doesn't see it, it never happened. The evidence doesn't speak for itself. How does the cop know who was driving? How does the cop know what happened? Maybe the car was forced off of the road my another driver who didn't see him and the smart move was to go into the dirt. I'd take that ticket to court in a millisecond.

It's nothing like that at all. Face it, your buddy ran out of judgment and talent. It's fortunate that no one was hurt! Let's hope he doesn't put others around him at risk again.

LOL, you must be a defense attorney. Probably because the driver told him exactly what happened and how fast he was going.

Traffic infractions aren't like criminal charges. To be found guilty of a traffic infraction you only need a preponderance of the evidence or a 51% chance you are guilty to be found liable for the infraction. No beyond a reasonable doubt involved here.

It was a cheap ticket, considering the bodily damage, property damage and ensuing litigation that could have easily resulted. Looks like everyone made out really well.
Any time that you lose control of your vehicle (barring a mechanical failure, etc.), it is your fault and you absolutely should be cited. That's a 1-2 ton piece of metal you're barreling down the highway in. Safety is always first.

Glad you're ok, pal! :)

I'm gonna guess your buddy's vehicle didn't have TN plates, thus assuring the officer that he would be unlikely to contest the ticket.
What could be better than charging an uncontested fee to support the local officers retirement fund, charged to someone who doesn't vote in your jurisdiction, conveniently on the 31st of the month, while claiming the moral high ground of promoting safety.
But I'm sure it is the extra few hundred dollars of ticket cost + insurance points that are going to sway his future judgement and behavior, rather than the loss of his vehicle, deductible, travel plans, and nearly his own and his friends life.
No, this is ********************ty policing - that serves only the officer's interest. And this comment comes from someone whose has 2 siblings that are retired LEOs, and in general I respect the hell out of those guys.
And jd, maybe you guys hold to a higher standard in the Emerald City, but aroud these parts quotas merely transitioned from "mandatory" to a "closely fol
lowed performance metric" some yrs ago.
Dwight- glad your ok. Remind your friend to cool it on unfamiliar roads in the rain.
It seems most hydroplaning occurs in the same spots over and over.

High performance tires and hydroplaning go together. In downpours I drive very cautious , I grab the wheel white knuckles. I have a lot of respect for the water and since it's practically invisible at night best to drive slower that flying of the road in the pitch dark night. Where I live I don't have the runoff space I used to have in Long Island. The roads here are two lines with no shoulders to land a runaway Boxster. Here ditches run parallel to the road usually 3 feet below the grade of the road.

Brokenlinkage, I think you are slightly misguided. Are there quotas for certain agencies? Yep. Mostly local agencies where towns adopt ordinances that mirror state laws. These local ordinance tickets allow those local municipalities to collect all of the money from that ticket. The police agency gets about 50 percent. On a state citation (because I don't work for a municipal agency) all of that money goes to the prosecutor. You know how much goes to my agency? 2 percent. 2. And it goes to the general fund, which never makes its way back to the road guys who earn it anyway. The idea that this ticket, written by THP, was a revenue generator is total crap.

Do I write tickets on crashes? You bet. That person that crashed just forced me to drive in the same terrible weather conditions and stop on the side of the road with them to take a report. I've been rear ended while dealing with crash reports and fellow officers have been killed. Meanwhile, if the person that had crashed hadn't driven too fast for conditions or if they had stayed off the roads until they improved neither one of us would be in this situation. Tickets also assign fault in a crash. You'd think a report stating what happened would be enough, but insurance companies are great at being snakes. Especially in a two vehicle crash, I write a ticket to the at fault driver. This assists in documenting what happened.

We don't write the laws. We just enforce them and honor the decisions that folks have made.

I would think the fine partially offsets the expenses of the "service call".