I got a ticket for tailgating the other day. Odd facts about the ticket:

* I never tailgate. Ask even people who think I'm not a safe driver, they'll say I speed all the time, but I never follow the car in front of me too closely.

* It was on a surface street. Not on the highway.

* The police officer said she was following me for a while. Odd then that she didn't ticket me for speeding, because I was definitely speeding before I came upon traffic.

What I think happened was that the police officer saw me speeding, but didn't get a radar reading on me. So she decided to follow me to wait for me to speed. But because there were cars in front of me, I wasn't speeding. But because she wanted to ticket me (something about red sports cars), she decided to ticket me for tailgating, despite the fact that I wasn't tailgating. The ironic thing is that the road I was on goes from 2 to 3 lanes each direction about a mile past where I was ticketed. If she waited until then, I would definitely have been speeding. But that's also past the county line, so she probably couldn't have ticketed me there.

Anyway, I plan to challenge the ticket using http://www.ticketassassin.com/.

 

Sweet website. Needs to be one in every state.

 

Why don't you man up and take responsibility for getting caught at doing *SOMETHING* wrong.... Quit blaming the system and take your lumps.

 

I got a ticket for "following too closely," which is tailgating. I went to traffic school and had it taken off my record. Did you ticket say "tailgating"? Maybe the two are different.

 

funny how accurately she could judge your following distance while 'behind' your vehicle.

 

I got one of these in San Rafeal about 20 years ago. The law actually specifies a distance, I think based upon speed (remember driver ed where they tell you to keep a car length for every 10MPH [or something like that]?) and road conditions. From what I recall, this is a ticket that they can give any time, because if you didn't tailgate according to the law, everyone would be cutting you off.

She probably just wanted to check out the 8

 

That wasn't very helpful or nice. I think he was being pretty honest about speeding, so I believe he was "man[ing] up" and taking responsibility, he just thought it was unjust. If you didn't want to help or contribute to the thread, why did you bother posting?

Good luck with your ticket, I bet she just wanted to check you out.

 

sux about your ticket. i almost got one of those once when i first started driving. i got lucky though. the cop could have gotten me for both speeding and tailgaiting though.

use what you have to contest it, particularly the part where SHE was behind YOU when she pulled you over for "tailgaiting", like previously stated

 

Try ticketassassin.com. Seriously, it worked for me couple times already. 2 out of 2!

 

That's nothing man, I gotta pay for 2 of my tickets, one of tomorrow actually and one on the 15th. First one was speeding (80mph in 35) and reckless driving. Second ticket I got 3 weeks after my first, was reckless driving, speeding (90mph in 45) and reckless indangerment, following to close to cars, almost causing an accident the cop said.. But, hey thats why we have lawyers! Parking ticket.

 

whoa there

 

hate tailgaters.

 

lawyers for what? 80 in 35 and 90 in 45 sounds like reckless driving to me -_-

 

I wasn't doing *ANYTHING* wrong at the time I was ticketed. As I stated before, I was speeding before then and speeding after then (after I turned to another road). But at the time I was ticketed, I was obeying every traffic law.

I was actually pulled over at a stop light, just after the light turned green. She never said where I was tailgating.

 

It's 1 out of 2 for me. Here's hoping that I can bring that up to 2 out of 3!

 

I'm from Southern cali but on a det to Yuma AZ for 6 weeks I got stopped tailgating 1 mile from the border. I was speeding also. It was at night and I was going 60 in a 45. I come out from a parking lot and started driving to about 60 then I slow down because I see the cop in front of me. I stop at a stop light behind him and then the light turns green. I keep following him and he switches lanes to the right then back to the left behind me after awhile because I knew I shouldn't pass him but well I was only going 40 then. after he followed me for half a block on my *** I switched lanes to the right behind another car the was going even slower than me so that he couldn't go right. well he pulls me over and gives me a tailgating ticket. "following too close" to the other guy when it wasn't even in his view. $115 and 2 pts on the CA system even though it was in AZ. I couldn't be there at the court date because it was scheduled after I was to return to San Diego. So there, that's worse. The one time the system F'd me.

 

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