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Speeding / Traffic Ticket
Anonymous4 views2 answers
In Florida, can I sucessfully fight a ticket for careless driving, law 316.1925.1 where my car accidently went off the road without any wittnesses. The highway patrol made an accident report saying I was careless. Someone told me that there is a Florida law or court case that says that an officer has to witness an infraction to give a ticket. Is that true
If no one saw you driving the vehicle, then you should be able to successfully defend against this careless driving infraction. There has to be a "wheel witness" who saw you driving and also to testify that you drove carelessly. Even if you later admitted to the officer that you were driving the vehicle, there may not be the "corpus delicti" of an offense - it must be proven that a crime has occurred before an admission alone can be held to be sufficient evidence to prove one's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Additionally, s. 316.1925, Fla. Stat. is very vague and sometimes an argument can be made regarding that issue.
You have a good case. No witnesses, civilian or otherwise, including the officer. Having a mechanic look at your car to see whether it was a car malfunction and having him/her issue some kind of report on the issue would help your cause as well. This report would effectively combat the officer's argument it was "driver error," i.e. careless driving. Any statements you made that would be indictative to guilt would probably be suppressed as the result of either a corpus delicti issue or an accident report issue. It goes without saying the aforementioned facts show you have a strong case.
