‘It’s not my car,’ cries driver ticketed for violation in another state – she had to take drastic measures to stop fee

A DRIVER opened her mailbox and found a shocking speeding ticket from a state she hadn’t visited.

The Hyundai owner is speaking out after a city hundreds of miles away fined her for a road law violation she didn’t commit.

6 NEWS WOWT

6 NEWS WOWT

Joan Paulsen drives her Sante Fe SUV in Omaha, Nebraska , according to local NBC affiliate WOWT .

But Paulsen received a letter in the mail asking her to pay a speeding ticket from Atlanta , Georgia , nearly 1,000 miles away.

Traffic monitoring cameras in the Peach State allegedly caught a white Hyundai Elantra sedan at illegal speeds.

Then, they automatically sent the fine to a driver with the same license plate number.

Paulsen’s Nebraska plates have the exact number as the allegedly speedy car , but the pictured vehicle is registered in Georgia.

She also pointed out that her car wasn’t the same color as the vehicle pictured in the fine.

“I drive a red SUV,” Paulsen complained to the television station.

Paulsen said she had been fighting with state officials in Georgia but struggled to get her ticket dismissed despite her heap of evidence.

Then, she turned to local media for help.

“The ticket has been dismissed,” she reported to the station.

“This is because of [WOWT]. For no other reason, because I would still be fighting them if I were on the phone.”

Paulsen said the Santa Fe was registered under her husband’s name.

The ticket added continued stress in both of their lives because he was the legal owner and she was the driver.

She said the fine’s dismissal was a “relief” for the couple.

How to fight a speeding ticket

According to a legally reviewed post, there are five effective strategies to fighting a speeding ticket if it was wrongfully issued.

1. If pulled over and issued a ticket, drivers can argue or dispute a driver’s personal opinion. When issuing a speeding ticket, an officer is required to write their opinion and come to an “objective” conclusion. If the ticket was written based on that judgment, it can be contested. An example would be if you were going 75 mph in a 65 mph zone because others were traveling at the same speed, you could argue that it would be more dangerous to travel at 65 mph.
2. You can dispute the officer’s presentation of evidence. If you were ticketed for something like running a stop sign or making an illegal u-turn, you can’t contest that if an officer saw you, but you can call things into court like eyewitnesses, diagrams, or photos.
3. Argue that the ticket was issued by a “mistake of fact.” This is tricky, but a “mistake of fact” is a mistake made by a driver about a situation that was beyond their control, or if a driver legitimately did not know they were violating the law. For example, you were driving in two lanes because the lane markers were so worn down that you could not see them.
4. You could say circumstances justified your driving. You could say you were speeding to pass a possibly drunk driver, or avoiding an accident by rapidly changing lanes. However, the argument won’t work if there’s proof you continued to speed after passing.
5. Similar to the above, it could be argued that speeding was necessary to avoid harm. The key is to argue that if you weren’t speeding, you or someone else could have been harmed.
6. Consult a traffic attorney, if all else fails. Many have free consultations to decide whether or not there’s a case.

Source: FindLaw

But Nebraska officials said that Paulsen is not alone.

According to the local state’s DMV, Nebraska drivers complain about an average of 350 out-of-state speeding tickets they claim they didn’t deserve.

Officials said they investigate every claim of incorrectly-assigned tickets and fight back on behalf of Nebraska residents.

They said they won 95% of the tickets they refuted.

SPEED CATCH

Officials and lawmakers across the US are increasingly turning to speed cameras to help slow down vehicles.

Cameras have entered school communities , construction zones , and highways .

However, as the traffic-monitoring devices become more ubiquitous on dozens of American roads, drivers have spoken out about their use.

“That’s not right,” Pete McRoberts, an ACLU policy director, said about claims that speed-monitoring devices make roads safer to Iowa-based NBC affiliate KWQC .

“Everyone can understand if you’re making a public safety claim – but on the side are pulling in millions of dollars, the motivations are pretty suspect.”