Actually got a ticket for this?!?!

[HumblePie]

So here I am driving along the highway. I'm in the right hand lane of a 3 lane highway. Some douchebag is driving 45 mph in a 60 minimum 70 maximum speed limit highway. There is a sign they drive right by stating both min and max. No biggie, just go around him and be on my merry way right? So as I'm closing in distance on him I look to the left to see if there is a spot to move over. There is no one in the middle lane and no one in the far left lane looking to move over to the middle lane. The nearest person the middle lane was several car lengths back. I turn on my blinker to signal my intent to change lanes. I wait a second after the blinker flashes a couple of times and change lanes. I proceed to pass the motorist who is now on my right. I am doing 65 mph the entire time. I move ahead several car lengths in front of the motorist I had passed. I put my blinker back on to move to the right. I move back over to the right.

As I enter back into the right hand lane I see cop lights flash on from the guy in the far left lane almost a half mile back. I wonder to myself if there is an accident up ahead on the road or something. To my surprise to cop pulls up behind me. I was like wait wtf? So I pull over.

Cop comes up and asks for DL and insurance. I hand them over. He then tells me I am getting a ticket for "Not signalling my intent for a long enough period of time.'

WAIT WTF?!!?!? I basically had a chat with the cop that went like this.

Was I speeding? No. Was I going too slow? No. Did I cause any endangerment to others around me? No. Did I use my blinker? Yes. But I'm getting a ticket because I didn't let my blinker flash long enough? Yes. What about the guy that is doing less than the minimum speed limit I pass by, isn't he doing a ticketable offense? Yes. Why didn't you pull him over then? Because I don't pull people over for going too slow unless it is more than 20 mph. But you would pull someone over for going 1mph faster than the limit right? Yes.


At this point I'm thinking he's filling his quota or trying to make some extra money. I decide to ask to check.

So how much would a ticket for going less than 20mph under be for? $84. And how much is my ticket going to be for? $189.


So basically the cop pulls me over for a bullshit ticket because it is potentially going to make more money than someone who is endangering the road for the rest of the motorists, causing traffic, and doing an offense that is worth less as a ticket. Pure bullshit.

Also I've looked it up. There is NO LAW I broke. There is nothing in the state of Texas that assigns a time frame for my signal intentions. Only that I do make a signal. I did everything legally and still got a ticket from a cop trying to be an ass. Chances are this ticket is going to be thrown out, but it aggravates me to no end some asshole cop did this and wasted my time. He also had the nerve to tell me I could talk to the judge to get the fine "lessened" by talking preferred adjudication. Dumb-ass, this ticket is going to be get tossed out. If it was worth my time I would get a lawyer to sue his ass for harassment.


TL;DR Cliffs:
1) Asshole cop gives me a ticket for not having my blinker on long enough
2) Cool starry bra!

 

[ThatsABigOne]

I feel for you. Some cops' IQ is pretty low.

 

[momeNt]

lame

 

[Capt Caveman]

Appealing the ticket should hopefully get you out of it.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Man, I could never live in a place where people get pulled over for nonsense like that... Hell, around here you'd be lucky if every 3rd driver even uses their turn signals at all.

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

go to court. if its true the law doesnt exist, then you win.

 

[olds]

545.104. SIGNALING TURNS; USE OF TURN SIGNALS. (a) An
operator shall use the signal authorized by Section 545.106 to
indicate an intention to turn, change lanes, or start from a parked
position.
(b) An operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left
shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of
movement of the vehicle before the turn.
(c) An operator may not light the signals on only one side of
the vehicle on a parked or disabled vehicle or use the signals as a
courtesy or "do pass" signal to the operator of another vehicle
approaching from the rear.

 

[olds]

I teach drivers training in California.
The California vehicle code basically says that you have to signal the last 100 feet of your turn and you only need to signal if your turn will effect other drivers.
I teach them to always signal so it's not open to a cops interpretation.
One cop might think that if someone is within 200' you should use signals. Another might think 500'.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Take the sheriffs office to court.

 

[TecHNooB]

plenty of ppl change lanes without signalling and you get a ticket. sweet.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Write a letter to the local newspaper where he lives and see if they will publish your complaint about him and your feeling about it.

 

[roguerower]

545.104. SIGNALING TURNS; USE OF TURN SIGNALS. (a) An
operator shall use the signal authorized by Section 545.106 to
indicate an intention to turn, change lanes, or start from a parked
position.
(b) An operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left
shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of
movement of the vehicle before the turn.
(c) An operator may not light the signals on only one side of
the vehicle on a parked or disabled vehicle or use the signals as a
courtesy or "do pass" signal to the operator of another vehicle
approaching from the rear.

At 65mph he's covering a mile every 55 seconds. At 5280ft in a mile that meets he's covering 96ft every second. Even if he hit the blinker and waited just one second (and some change)(like the OP is saying he did) he would be meeting the letter of the law.

 

[allisolm]

545.104. SIGNALING TURNS; USE OF TURN SIGNALS. (a) An
operator shall use the signal authorized by Section 545.106 to
indicate an intention to turn, change lanes, or start from a parked
position.
(b) An operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left
shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of
movement of the vehicle before the turn.
(c) An operator may not light the signals on only one side of
the vehicle on a parked or disabled vehicle or use the signals as a
courtesy or "do pass" signal to the operator of another vehicle
approaching from the rear.

And, at 65MPH that would be about what - multiply by... carry the 2... one second 's worth of signalling? sounds like a BS ticket to me.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I teach drivers training in California.
The California vehicle code basically says that you have to signal the last 100 feet of your turn and you only need to signal if your turn will effect other drivers.
I teach them to always signal so it's not open to a cops interpretation.
One cop might think that if someone is within 200' you should use signals. Another might think 500'.

I wonder if the law is the same in Texas.

 

[SP33Demon]

It's Texas, what do you expect. Bushes, Rick Perry, Ross Perot, Ron Paul, blondes who walk into airplane propellers, stupidly humid hot weather, and of course notorious a.hole cops. Hey, maybe this guy is related to the ex Texas trooper who poisoned the Auburn trees?

I'd move asap.

 

[zokudu]

Yawn. Did you break the law? If you did then that's your fault. If you didn't show up in court and get it thrown out and move on with your life.

 

[Aikouka]

I teach drivers training in California.
The California vehicle code basically says that you have to signal the last 100 feet of your turn and you only need to signal if your turn will effect other drivers.
I teach them to always signal so it's not open to a cops interpretation.
One cop might think that if someone is within 200' you should use signals. Another might think 500'.

One way that I try to reflect my intentions is that I use my turn signal before I start slowing down. Seems to me that the combination of my turn signal and brake lights tells someone, "hey, this guy is probably going to slow down to a pretty low speed to make this turn."

Also, I'm not sure why you bolded the part of that law in the other post. It only mentions actual turns and not lane changes, which are mentioned specifically in the heading (so one would assume that they need to be specifically mentioned elsewhere).

 

[rcpratt]

545.104. SIGNALING TURNS; USE OF TURN SIGNALS. (a) An
operator shall use the signal authorized by Section 545.106 to
indicate an intention to turn, change lanes, or start from a parked
position.
(b) An operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left
shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of
movement of the vehicle before the turn.
(c) An operator may not light the signals on only one side of
the vehicle on a parked or disabled vehicle or use the signals as a
courtesy or "do pass" signal to the operator of another vehicle
approaching from the rear.

Changing lanes is not the same thing as turning. And as was stated, at 65mph, 100 ft is ~1 second.

 

[MotF Bane]

You're fucked anyways. Even if you legally did nothing wrong, you're still losing time and money to a dickhead cop.

 

[Jeff7]

Man, I could never live in a place where people get pulled over for nonsense like that... Hell, around here you'd be lucky if every 3rd driver even uses their turn signals at all.

And often, turn signal usage when changing lanes is more of a matter of "I'M TURNING HERE, MOVE!!" since the signal is usually put on after the vehicle has already started to move over.

The larger highways are fun too. I generally drive on roads that are up to 2 lanes each way. It's rare that I drive on the big ones that are 5+ lanes each way. On those, a signal can mean you're shifting one lane, or else "Watch the hell out, I'm going all the way to the other side, and screw you if you're in my way."

 

[Squisher]

545.104. SIGNALING TURNS; USE OF TURN SIGNALS. (a) An
operator shall use the signal authorized by Section 545.106 to
indicate an intention to turn, change lanes, or start from a parked
position.
(b) An operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left
shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of
movement of the vehicle before the turn.
(c) An operator may not light the signals on only one side of
the vehicle on a parked or disabled vehicle or use the signals as a
courtesy or "do pass" signal to the operator of another vehicle
approaching from the rear.

And, that would be 1 second at 70 mph.

 

[Gibson486]

Cities need money. They do what they can and that includes giving BS tickets.

A few months ago, I got a parking ticket for parking 8 feet from a fire hydrant. I parked at this space for over 2 years since it is in front of my apt. Apparently, the law says you have to park 10 feet or more. So, you know what I did, I took pictures for 2 months of vehicles that disobeyed that law without a ticket. I even found instances where they had metered spaces that violated that law. Armed with over 200 pictures uploaded to my Zune touch (the thing was finally good for something), I went to my scheduled day and presented my findings. The woman just looked at me and did not know what to say. Eventually, she said it didn't matter and that I still had to pay. I started arguing about how metered spaces even violated that law and how they need to be consistent if they wanted to get away with this. It went on for about 5 minutes until she finally got rid of the ticket.

 

[MaxFusion16]

get the media involved, get this asshole cop fired

submit your story to jalopnik or something.

 

[Exterous]

Hell, around here you'd be lucky if every 3rd driver even uses their turn signals at all.

Same here. Using your turn signal on the expressway is more of an invitation for people to speed up to keep you from being able to change lanes

 

[Paladin3]

Posting in an "I got a ticket for this!" thread that hasn't backfired on the OP...yet.

Actually, pretty petty thing for the cop to ticket you over. If I could afford it, I would go to court and ask the judge and ticketing officer why Texas law enforcement feels it is necessary to bleed it's citizens dry with such predatory ticketing practices. Make sure they understand this only pisses people off and make them vote against increasing funding for law enforcement. Then make an appointment with someone in authority at that particular law enforcement agency to ask the same question, and relay the results to your local media.

Sure, it will be a colossal waste of your time and money, but it could be the start of some change. Law enforcement agencies nation wide are embracing this nickle and dime tactic to increase their revenue as budgets tighten.

In fact, as a former newspaper journalist, I think this would be an excellent story to do: What strategies are public agencies with the ability to cite using to generate funds as their budgets shrink.