Hmmpost

Getting stopped by a police officer is never fun. Getting stopped out of state by a state trooper over five hours from home for a bogus reason is even worse. This is the story of what happened to my wife and I over our anniversary trip to Lincoln City beach in September this year. Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and nothing written in this post should be construed as a substitute for real legal advice from a trained professional. I’m simply sharing the story of what happened to me on an informational basis because it was a new experience for me and perhaps might be helpful for others who are curious how the process works. Oregon state troopers ticketing for following too close First fellow motorists please be warned that if you are traveling through the state of Oregon, understand that the state troopers can and will stop you and issue a citation for following too closely. The recommended safe distance for speeds over 30 MPH is 4 seconds. The Oregon state driver’s manual indicates that this distance is required to prevent an accident from occurring. And yes, Oregon state troopers will ticket you even if you are not in an accident. Their statutes do not provide that an accident must occur. The officer can and will videotape you from some clandestine location and stop you if he deems that you are following the car in front of you too closely. You will not get the opportunity to see this video evidence unless you plead not guilty and face the officer in front of a traffic circuit court judge. This ticketing is more heavy-handed than Washington state where we haven’t seen following too close citations issued not in conjunction with a motor vehicle accidents. I understand from talking to others that they do happen, but I’ve yet to know anybody personally or professionally who has gotten one. Most common is when a rear-end collision occurs. When the trooper pulls you over So my wife and I are traveling to the beach along Hwy 18 in Oregon traveling a sloping hill in the late afternoon. It was still daylight and the roads were dry along a mostly one lane stretch of road. We had turned on our lights as had many other motorists. I’m embedding a map below of the approximate location in case other readers are traveling this same area. Does anybody know how to search for milepost locations in any of the mapping services? I don’t see this as an option in Google Maps. This would be a very handy feature to add. The location in question is Hwy 18 close to milepost 10. View Larger Map I would be extremely cautious in this area as the troopers are targeting motorists that they feel are following too close in this area. This is the most selected chosen GPS route coming North from Seattle or Portland to Lincoln City, Oregon Having gotten a speeding ticket in the past out of state (not in Oregon, in Jackpot, Nevada) I was careful to ensure we traveling under the posted speed limit of 55, but since our car didn’t have cruise control didn’t know the exact speed at any given moment. I recall us dragging on some of the more speedier traffic and letting these folks pass in the stretches of passing lanes, but we did pass a couple cars here and there that were at an even more leisurely pace. Around milepost 10 suddenly in the rearview mirror we see those familiar red and blue flashing lights in the distance behind. I slowed down, moving to the shoulder in a safe location. My wife and I looked at each other puzzled why the trooper pulled in behind us. I told my wife we weren’t speeding. We had no idea why we were being stopped. Talking to the state trooper The trooper came to the passenger side window and informed us right away that we were being video and audio taped. He proceeded to tell us that he was enforcing motorists following too closely and that he observed following the car in front of us less than one second apart. He continued on to say that the recommended safe distance is 4 seconds. He asked us how fast we were traveling and my answer was: "55 … 50, I don’t know." He then informed me at that speed we needed a minimum space of 120 feet to stop in time from the car in front of us. As he’s explaining this to us I’m seeing tons of trains of cars passing on both sides with cars much closer than 120 feet. I pointed this out to the trooper. He didn’t seem very interested in what most motorists passing by were doing. He took my license and insurance information and went back to his patrol car.  While he was gone my wife and I shared more puzzled gazes. In November 2003 she was hit as a pedestrian in the crosswalk. Many doctors visits and a surgery later, she is very skittish as a passenger in cars if we are too close to the car in front of us. Being mindful and respectful of her fears, I try to put extra distance between the vehicles in front. Many times what happens is other cars will pass and move into the space between us, creating a dangerous distance. Her reaction to traveling too closely is like she wants to push on passenger side brakes that don’t exist. But she didn’t do that at any point along this highway or even trip. She didn’t give me any non-vocal gestures that we were ever too close to any car, including the car the trooper said we were less than one second away from. The trooper returned and handed back my license. I fully expected to get a warning and some words of caution about keeping a safe distance, but instead he informed me that he "reviewed the videotape and the evidence is clear that you were following too closely." And then he said he was going to issue me a ticket. My first reaction wasn’t anger, but even more confusion. I showed him more cars, trucks and motorcycles passing us in groups with plenty of other cars closer than 120 feet. He remarked that he could write these citations all day long. We want back and forth in a somewhat argumentative fashion, but nothing ever got too heated. He then asked if I had any questions. "How much is the ticket?" He shifted on his heels, "I don’t know, the judge sets that." He then handed us the ticket and it was folded into the shape and size of a long cigarette. "But the judge will probably reduce the ticket for you since you have no record." After that he was gone before we could unroll/unfold the ticket and show him in his own writing where he write the price of the ticket. Following too close ticket options: guilty, no contest or not guilty The ticket for following too close was $242. Like most traffic tickets in other states, your options are three: plead guilty or no contest and hope the judge reduces the ticket. Which the judge may do if your record is otherwise clean. Or the third option: plead not guilty and fight the ticket. As we left the scene my wife and I talked about the ticket and what option to choose. While the gut reaction for a traffic ticket 5+ hours away might be to pay the ticket and move on, there were two reasons I didn’t want to do that:

I felt that I was innocent. I didn’t want this ticket on my driving record.

So I pled not guilty. Being prepared for that day in court Like most readers (hopefully) I am not that familiar with the traffic court system. In my nearly 25 years of driving I’ve only had two tickets, both of which were for speeding. One was out of state in Jackpot, Nevada and since I was clearly breaking the law, I just paid it and moved along. The other was questionable on the way coming home one night and thought about fighting it — even blogged about possibly fighting it here — and decided to just pay that as well. But this ticket felt like the weakest of the three. I felt like the worst case scenario would be that we got the ticket reduced but maybe we could prevail in court. I wanted to test the Oregon state traffic court. And hey, along the way I’d learn about how the traffic court system worked — or didn’t work — for me. Before going to court, my wife and I did some research. We looked up the driver’s manual at the Oregon Dept of Motor Vehicles (DMV) website and printed the page (31) that the trooper referenced. We didn’t look up the ordinance 811.485 but that would have been a good idea. At the very least I tried to do the following before coming to traffic court:

Not show up empty-handed. I wanted to have some sort of drawing, map, pictures of the location, video, anything that would help support the exact conditions of when/where the infraction took place. If one was fortunate to have a videocam or digital camera or heck even a camera phone, taking pictures at the scene as close to when it happens can’t hurt. You know the state is going to have video evidence, so I wanted to bring my own. Planned to bring any witness(es). You can put this witness on the stand and ask questions. Run through what questions you intend to ask this witness. I didn’t do this because I didn’t realize things would work this way. We’d talked enough about what happened that I was confident when she testified under oath that the truthful answers she provided, whatever they would be, would be helpful to my case. So this is one that I wish I had done. It occurred to me that if a witness has any related experience, either professional or personal experience that might be relevant to your case, figure out how you can bring this line of questioning into the current case. In my wife’s case, the accident in 2003 was pivotal to my defense and I had to find a way to bring that into the current case without it being thrown out for being irrelevant. Remember that the burden of proof is on the state. You do not have to use any of the evidence brought along or call upon witnesses of the event. I kept my exhibits to myself until the time needed to use them in the case. They asked at the beginning of the trial if any exhibits would be used and while I had one, I didn’t share it at that time. More on why I did that later. Dress professionally. I might have been overdressed in some people’s view wearing a shirt and tie, but I believe appearance works on a subconscious level. The judge is supposed to be impartial but little things like appearance do work on some (most? all?) people, even if it has no clear impact on the final judgement of the case. I’m not sure if this helped or hurt my case being the most professionally dressed defendant in the room, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

How traffic court works - our day in court Our court time was at 3:30pm and there were five other cases posted along the wall. We arrived a good hour early and I read the cases on the wall both because I was curious who else would be in the courtroom with Kara and I and because I wanted to know when we would be up. Of the five other cases three of them were also for following too close infractions. We were listed last on the docket. I was happy about this positioning and feel like this is the best possible scenario for inexperienced defendants like me. I would be able to see how court process worked for others. We filed into the courtroom at 3:30pm and waited. 3:35 and a lady from the court told us that they were waiting for another case and the trooper. They would wait a maximum of 10 minutes. I had heard that if the police officer doesn’t show up your case is thrown out. As 3:40 drew closer, the anticipation that he wouldn’t show was great. 3:37. A guy behind us joked about us fixating on the clock. It was true. I don’t think anybody in the room was hoping the officer would show. At 3:39 the door opened and the trooper walked in, fully dressed for duty.  He had some paperwork in hand and three VHS videotapes. Yes, it’s true, the Oregon State Patrol are still using VHS tapes!  The court trial process worked like this:

Before the judge hears your case you are allowed time to review the evidence the other side will be presenting. In my case this was the videotape. When I reviewed it, I didn’t realize there was an audio portion which would become a key sticking point later in the testimony. In the beginning of the tape, you could clearly see the car in front of us pass and almost two seconds later by the VHS tape counter, you see me pass by the officer. He then proceeds to follow and pass the car behind us and pull us over. I thought this was all there was, but there is more. There was the audio of when he went to the window of the car and talked to us. My voice inside the car was muffled but somewhat audible.  You and the officer are sworn in. You must raise your right hand to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury. The police officer presents the state’s case against you first, outlining how he feels you broke the law. He will present any evidence he has, possibly including but not limited to audio and video evidence, pictures and the like. He may even draw pictures on a white board for the court. He did in two of the five cases we saw, including ours. At any time during the officer’s testimony you can object to any statement or presentation. You must provide reasons for your objection. In the first following too close case we witnessed, the defendant didn’t object to anything the officer said. I think this was a mistake on his part. While he shouldn’t have objected on baseless merits, some things seemed to this layman like they were just way too speculative or something he could have disagreed with letting the court put into testimony. As I found myself disagreeing with what the officer presented — and it wasn’t even my following too close case — I made a note and hoped I might be able to use in my case. As it turned out, you can’t use testimony from another case made by the officer. Bummer. You are allowed the opportunity to cross examine the officer. Once the officer has finished presenting his case against you then you get the opportunity to ask him questions about his testimony. I did this. Next you state your full legal name for the record and present your defense. Why didn’t you break the law? Why do you feel that you are innocent? This is also the stage where you will introduce your witness(es), if you have any. The officer can object to any/all/part of your testimony. The officer can then cross examine you and any witness(es). Since the burden of proof is on the state, the officer gets the final opportunity to rebut any of your defense testimony and/or witnesses. You can object to the state’s rebuttal. I did. The judge will then render a verdict. It only goes one of two ways: guilty or not guilty. I suppose there is a dismissal option you could ask for before the trial begins, but unless you have strong evidence that the case is completely meritless, you probably won’t have much luck there. If you are found guilty by the court you will be asked when you can pay the ticket. Either you must pay now in full or can schedule when to make the payment. If you are found not guilty then you’ll sign something and walk away without paying any fee or having the ticket on your record.

Witnessing the cases before mine In the first following too close trial the defendant brought up that the ordinance does not give an exact number of seconds. I thought this was a very clever defense. He pointed out that it was "suggested" and could be open to interpretation. I made notes. The defendant was weak though on cross examination and didn’t seem to object to things it seemed he might be able to object to. Also it was night in his case unlike mine. The judge ruled against him reducing the ticket by $60 to $182. Next up was a guy who was caught speeding on a Harley going 84 MPH in a 55. He had some weird defense about having to speed up to be safe. There was this intricate powerpoint printout he offered as an exhibit along with a long statement he read. He rambled at points and made the room uncomfortable. Besides being not very respectful to the trooper, he even interrupted the judge a few times. The case ended badly with him saying: "just tell me what I need to pay." He served as a good example how not to present my case. Next up was the second following too close case that had to be moved to another courtroom because the judge knew the defendant. This bummed me out because I was hoping to glean some more information from how others were defending their cases. The court sandwiched in a DUI please where the defendant pled guilty to DUI and got the reckless driving charge thrown out. Last up was me. Minutes before 5pm, I asked if we were up against the clock and the judge, a woman in her 40s by my estimation politely replied, "nope, we have plenty of time." The moment of truth: the state’s case against me The trooper presented his case against me by first playing the VHS videotape in extreme slow motion. He explained how he used the markers to determine how many feet apart our car was from the car in front. He said he estimated that while traveling at speed of 55 – I objected. No where was it established by me or him that I was traveling 55 MPH.  He then proceeded to play the videotape further where the audio started and I objected again. "Your honor, I didn’t know there was any audio." The clerk next to the judge confirmed that I wasn’t aware that there was audio on the tape. She left to her chambers while I had a chance to review the audio portion of the tape. This was important because I could be heard answering the trooper’s question about how fast I was going by saying: "55 … 50, I don’t know really." I made notes of this and the trooper got the judge to return to the courtroom. She asked me if I objected to the tape being played with the audio portion. I said, no. The trooper continued to use the higher end of my statement — the 55 MPH — to determine that I was only 70 feet from the car in front of me. He referenced the fact that the Oregon state driving manual requires "3-4 seconds" distance between. I didn’t object, but made a note for cross on this. Unlike the first following too close case, he didn’t get into how he looked for "a pattern of continued breaking of the law" by following along to see if I braked. I was hoping he would, because there was no pattern. He came right after me. He completed his testimony by saying that despite there being "almost optimal" conditions: road was dry, daylight, that he didn’t feel in his professional opinion that I was following at a safe distance and that was why he issued the citation. In my cross examination, I asked him how familiar he was with the Oregon State Driver’s Manual that he had referenced multiple times in his testimony. He replied that he felt very familiar. I then offered into evidence page 31 of the DMV manual. He objected saying that this page was from "the old manual, not the new manual." I told the judge that it was taken directly from the DMV website and would be happy to boot up my computer with internet and present that into evidence. He withdrew his objection and allowed it into evidence. I pointed out that the manual doesn’t state "3-4 seconds" it states "2-4 seconds" and that it was a suggested guideline. He replied that the new manual says ‘3-4′ seconds. I repeated that the statute — which I’d learned in the prior case — was a suggested distance and asked him to confirm that. He said it was. I then asked him to explain why he thought I was traveling less than a second distance from the car in front of me when the timestamp in the video clearly shows more than a second had elapsed. He said by his estimation I was. I had no further cross examination questions. It was time for my testimony. The first thing I did was dispute the trooper’s statement to me versus the video evidence he introduced. In the video one of the very first things he did was tell me that we were traveling less than a second behind the car in front when the video showed this to be inaccurate. Next, I called my witness, my wife, to the stand. She got to sit in the witness chair to the right of the judge. I asked her if we were in a hurry to get to the beach. No. "When we were stopped were we both confused and if so, why?" "Yes," she replied and then explained neither of us knew what we did wrong or why we were stopped. I asked her if in the past driving with me had she been in situations where cars were too close to us, whether they swerved in front from another lane or that I needed to brake to be safe.  She affirmed she’d been a passenger in situations like that. "At any time during this trip — including at/around the scene portrayed in the videotape — do you recall a situation where you felt that we were traveling too closely to the car in front?" "No." I then went for the background. "In 2003, you were –" "Objection," the trooper replied, "Irrelevant." "Your honor, I need to explain that my wife was in an accident in 2003 and has had a condition since then as a passenger where she’s fearful of cars that are too close in front." The trooper objected again saying that had nothing to do with this case. The judge agreed to allow the testimony. The trooper was noticeably disturbed. I continued: "In 2003, you were hit by a car and what sort of reaction to you have to being too close to cars in front of you." Kara explained that she tenses up and gets very uncomfortable. From the driver’s seat in my peripheral vision this is very noticeable. It’s like having a traffic light inside your car. A big, bright yellow warning light. I slow down — always. "So on this trip, I ask you again, did you at any time feel any anxiety or concern that we were traveling at too close a distance to the car in front." "No." "Did you feel unsafe at any point in this trip, including the moment portrayed in this video?" "No." "Do you feel that bearing the road conditions that if this car in front would have slammed on its brakes I would have been able to stop in time, safely?" "Yes." "At the conclusion of the stop, what were the circumstances of the officer handing us the ticket?" "He asked if there were any questions and you asked how much the ticket cost. He said he didn’t know, that was up to the judge and then handed us this wadded–" "Objection," the trooper jumped in, "what does this have to do with…?" The judge replied, leaning closer, "Wait, I want to hear this." Kara continued to explain that the trooper had handed us the ticket folded and rolled almost like a cigarette and that by the time we unfolded and looked at it that the ticket amount of $242 was there to see. The trooper objected again. "Your honor, we couldn’t confirm that the information on the ticket was accurate or ask any specific questions about the ticket because he gave us the ticket in this condition and left right away. Clearly he gave us misinformation and also our mailing address is not correct on the ticket. We were not able to give him the correct information, nor was he interested in waiting around for us to help him make sure the information was accurate. This drew suspicion from us that other elements of this stop may be in doubt." The trooper cross examined Kara, asking if she’s ever had a driver’s license. She replied no. He asked if she ever had taken a driver’s exam. In a follow-up statement rebutting the cross, I stated that having a driver’s license does not mean you have any additional ability to assess danger from the passenger’s side of the vehicle.  I then closed my testimony saying that I felt overall that I had been traveling at a safe enough distance to stop with the conditions before me and that I’d never been involved in an accident in nearly 25 years of driving. The trooper went to the whiteboard in his final rebuttal of my testimony and proceeded to explain how I needed to be 120 feet distance from the car in front of me and that "being generous" I was 80 feet away. He then said that given the time involved I would not have been able to stop without avoiding danger. I objected during his testimony when he wrote 70 and 80 feet saying he didn’t know that for certain. He couldn’t know exactly how many feet I was from the car in front of me without knowing the speed. He didn’t know the speed, I didn’t know the speed, so we were guessing. It was a guess based on a law which is gray to begin with: suggested following distance is just that: suggested. It’s not an absolute. It depends. The trooper rebutted by saying that unless I was a drag racer how I could stop in time safely he didn’t know. And then like that, almost an hour later, the case was over. My Perry Mason moment had ended. The judge then asked me if there was anything else I wanted to add. I said no, I think that’s sufficient. The verdict If you skipped down here, you missed all the good stuff, scroll back and up and read through the court case, blow by blow. Really. After the trial, I felt pretty good about how I conducted myself. Felt like good points were made and if there was any chance of being found not guilty I’d done about as best as could be expected to making that finding happen.  I don’t think the ticket was fair, I think for coming down this far to begin with The judge leaned forward pensively. "This is one of those cases where things could go either way. I’m going to do some additional video watching on this." I was nervous that there would not be a finding on the case but didn’t think that could happen. Could it be possible that something was presented that made a judge think? What was it? Could there be another court date? No. My heart started thudding against my chest. Say it, I thought. Just say it. "I’m going to find you not guilty."