moving2nyc

Hi there,

My wife has just had her license suspended for speeding in NYC. We expected she would just be fined but they gave her a 60 day ban.

Has anyone ever appealed against a ban?

Never expected a ban so she didn't take a lawyer with her, could a lawyer help appeal?

Thanks for any advise

Noorah101

She must have been going pretty fast. According to this (which may or may not be correct), in order to get a possible ban, one has to be going 40 MPH over the posted speed limit:

http://www.wikihow.com/Fight-a-New-Y...lations-Bureau

I suppose if she was going less than 40 MPH over the speed limit, and can prove it, there might be a chance to get the suspension revoked...but my guess is that a judge will rule in favor of the police, unless the officer either doesn't show up for the court hearing, or it can be proven that his radar gun was not calibrated correctly.

Rene

sir_eccles

http://www.dmv.org/ny-new-york/suspended-license.php

Does she have a probationary license?

Michael

It could be that she had several traffic violation during a 3 year period.

There probably isn't anything that can be done now but in the future, I suspect NY allows a person to attend traffic school (probably about once every 18 months) like most other states to get tickets purged from their record.

moving2nyc

Thanks everyone, she was doing 74mph in a 50mph. She saw a cop in front of her with lights flashing and then one came up behind her. She thought he was trying to get past her to join the one in front. She had to speed up to get past the flow of traffic to the right of her. Everybody was doing the same speed hence she had to get to 70+ to pull over to the middle lane.

The cop behind then pulled in to the middle lane too and shouted over his speaker to pull over which she did.

She had 3 points from a previous speeding ticket for 40mph in a 30mph so hardly a hardened criminal.

Michael

Normally you can't appeal if you didn't contest the charges but it may be possible that they will allow her to use her car for work purposes. It sounds like she had had a judge that was having a bad day. It may also be that since NYC has good public transpiration, they are less tolerant of traffic violations than other places in the US.

Bob

But also, a lot of states in this area, if you've had the state license less than x years, usually 3, it's a automatic ban on speeding over 20mph.

Maine, it's a automatic 30 day suspension whatever the ticket for a moving violation for the first 12 months, or it was when we lived there. Went up to 60/90 days depending on how fast over the limit.

Michael

Is it a state license or any license? I thought those laws were aimed at teenage drivers and not people that moved from out of state that previously had a valid driver's license?

Bob

Anyone that had gotten the particular state license.

Though there was talk of changing that to people under 21 a few years ago but don't know if it changed or not, in ME at least.

Outside of ME, when I lasted looked, it was only automatic for excess speeding, over 30 in MA but a lower threshold if not on a interstate.

notonuksoil

Ouch a ban seems harsh. I'm not sure about how to appeal this but in hindsight I'd have got a lawyer to contest the original ticket.

I got pulled over on I-87 a few years ago for allegedly doing 87+mph in a 55mph area. I was advised to let a lawyer handle it as it also could have been an instant ban. He ended up getting me 4 points a small fine and told to me to be careful with my speed! He went to court on my behalf in an area that is known locally for being tough on speeding. It was well worth the cost of his fee as it could have been considerably worse. I had one previous speeding violation prior to this that was actually changed to a moving violation when I went to the town to contest it.

We were told when we first relocated here that if we get any motoring tickets, even parking tickets to contest them (not had one of those yet - touch wood)

Good luck

kins

I was pulled over for speeding when I'd had my license for a week - no ban or ticket.

Have been pulled over once since then - still no ticket...

Dorothy

Maybe not a hardened criminal, but 24 mph over the limit (50% over!) is surely dangerous. She's probably lucky to get away with just a ticket and licence suspension.

You say she had to speed up to gets past the flow of traffic to the right of her. Could she not have put her right indicator on and merged?

mikelincs

The thing people need to take from this is 'never speed to get out of the way of a cop'. I remember a good few years ago someone from work travelling home one night late, and she saw a car behind her, she was doing the speed limit, she got a bit worried as it just stayed behind her (this was late at night on unlit town roads), so she speeded up, the car behind also increased spped, so she went faster. This continued for a while, her speeding up and the car following suit, eventually she arrived home and pulled into her driveway. The other car pulled up aoutside and she realised it was a police car. So she siad, ohh I was just going to ring you, I've been followed by a car, and the cop said, yes, it was us, now, have you been drinking, luckily she hadn't, but they did do her for speeding.

Bob

In ME, they only introduced it when I moved to the US.

It stung my BIL as he got a ticket and lost his license for 30 days, he was under 21 at the time, but it also stung another cousin who was over 21.

I then got my MA license when we moved down here in '06 and haven't looked at the law since as it didn't apply to me there after.

At the time I looked. If you moved from another state and had the license over 3 years, this rule didn't apply unless you were under 18/21 can't remember which. It applied regardless if you were getting a fresh license.

Nutek

Average speed on our local secion of i84 is 70-75mph (posted limit is 50-55mph)

Trying to do anything close to the actual speed limit is absolutely terrifying.