On the long weekend of 4th of July independence day, I made a grand vacation plan with friends covering several states of the east coast. The driving route included Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia covering several tourist sites in those states. The first stop was Luray caverns in Virginia. They were the most beautiful caves I had seen till date. After we finished visiting the site, we headed towards North Carolina. One good thing about the US is that when the police are targeting a heavy crackdown, they usually warn beforehand. Unfortunately, I had failed to take notice that Virginia had already declared a warning of a heavy crackdown on speeders. But as they say, there’s always an ace over the king, speeders try to outsmart cops by using radar detectors in the car to detect cop’s radar guns that measure speed. I had one too, the best in class! But the problem was that Virginia, like a few other states, has banned the use of radar detectors so if you’re passing through Virginia, you must make sure that your radar detector is off and hidden or you’re looking at some big trouble. So I complied. I had my radar detector off. New Jersey has a speed limit of 65 mph for the most part but I found New Jersey cops relatively laid back when it came to speeding. They don’t bother to pull you over even if you’re doing 80-85 mph in 65 mph zone unless they had a bad day! Now Virginia has a different story altogether. Even though their speed limit is 70 mph, slightly higher than New Jersey, they are pretty stringent about their speeding limits. Coming from New Jersey, I had a habit of driving between 80-85 mph which I thought was safe enough for a cop to notice. How wrong I was! About an hour drive from Luray Caverns, I was pulled over by a cop.
“Good afternoon Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?” He asked.
“I don’t know Sir,” I replied nervously.
“Do you know what speed were you driving at?”
“I think I was around 73-74 mph, Sir.” I knew I was doing about 80 but acceptance of guilt is an automatic walk into trouble so I lied.
“Can I have your license and registration please?”
I handed over the papers and he went back to his car. After a few minutes, he returned with a ticket and handed me over the paper to sign.
“Can you please sign here Sir?” He asked in an emotionless tone.
I looked at the ticket and saw that he gave me an 83/70 reckless driving ticket. I just did not want another ticket for that year plus I did not want to ruin my mood for the rest of the vacation. My vacation had just started! So I pleaded to him if he could just issue a warning instead of a ticket.
“It’s too late Sir. I’ve already written the ticket. Moreover, you were doing way above 70 and driving recklessly which puts other people on the road in danger.”
I felt terrible because pretty much everyone on the road was driving around the same speed but I guess I turned out to be the unlucky fish to be caught that day! I pleaded again but it had no effect on the officer. He was insistent to have me sign the paper. I knew that if I argue further, it may aggravate the cop and may land me into further trouble so I complied. As soon as he left, I googled on the phone to check the fines and points associated with that ticket. My ground shook when I saw that it was a criminal offense in the state of Virginia! I knew my vacation was killed even before it started. I kept driving in deep thoughts about the repercussions for the rest of the journey. I was not going to get peace until I spoke to a lawyer but it was a weekend and no attorney’s office was picking up the phone. The anxiety lasted full 24 hours until I realized that there was no point in ruining my vacation for something I can’t do anything about. I did my best to keep my spirits high for the rest of the vacation.
While returning from the vacation, I was passing through the state of Tennessee. We were on the highway and it was about 2 am. Everyone was sleepy so I was in a rush to reach a hotel as soon as possible. It was a dark empty highway with only our car on the road. The memory of a speeding ticket that I was awarded at the start of the vacation had not faded yet so I was being careful about the speed of my car while returning but there came a patch of the road where I subconsciously landed up speeding while entering into a different highway. Five minutes into the highway and I see red blue lights flashing behind me signaling me to pull over. Everyone who had been in a sleepy state so far woke up with eyes wide open and exclaimed in horror “NOT AGAIN!”
“This is unreal! This can’t be happening!” I said in shock.
“What did you do this time?” My friend asked me.
“Nothing! I just increased my speed slightly subconsciously while entering into the highway. It was not intentional I swear!” I replied.
I pulled the car over on the shoulder and waited for the cop. He was a well built and tall African American cop. And it was 2 am at night with no other soul on this dark highway. It was enough to intimidate all of us.
“Where are you rushing to man?” He asked.
“I’m sorry Sir but I’m trying to reach a hotel as everyone is terribly sleepy.” I replied in a pleading tone. He flashed his little torched inside the car and took a quick peep. After seeing couples and child in the car, he was convinced that we were no criminals but genuinely trying to get to a hotel.
“You were doing more than 90 in a 70 mph zone. I paced you at 90 and still couldn’t match you!” He exclaimed in disbelief.
“I’m sorry Sir. I’m really not sure about the speed. I thought I was driving around the limit but it may have happened to go slightly overboard while entering into the highway through the ramp” I said in pleading tone again. He took my license and registration and went back to his car. I kept looking through my rear view mirror hoping and praying that he doesn’t return with a ticket. I just couldn’t handle one more. After a few minutes of wait, I saw him coming towards my car with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Sh*t! I’m dead! He has written a speeding ticket and that too 90+ over 70! I’m totally screwed now!” Thoughts were running wild into my head.
“Here Sir. It’s a warning ticket. There is no point, no fines and it won’t affect your insurance. Now drive safe and have a good night.” He said calmly and left. Now I was in shock.
“What the hell just happened?!?” I thought. The feeling was like getting a presidential pardon for capital punishment! I looked up and could only utter the words “Thank you, Lord!”
When all of us brainstormed about how this happened, we figured that he was actually an undercover detective who was coming from the other side of the highway and observed an unusual speed of our car so he turned around and followed us for a while. Since he probably did not have a radar gun, he paced us to check the speed and since he was not a regular cop, he chose to just issue a warning. Nevertheless, it was a sigh of huge relief to all of us that we didn’t have to deal with another huge ticket on the same vacation!
When I was looking for a lawyer to fight my Virginia ticket, I spoke to tens of them which were good names and were charging anywhere from 2000$ to 5000$. It was a lot of money on a stake so I needed to make sure that I’m doing good research on the lawyer that I was going to hire. Most of them were promising a downgrade of the violation to a lesser degree to get me off the hook of the criminal misdemeanor charge. One of them even promised to go to appellate court if the ruling was not favorable. All of it sounded stress relieving but the money involved was simply too much. I thought if I anyway have an option of appealing the judgment in an appellate court then why not hire a less expensive lawyer and take a chance. If the judgment is not favorable, I can further pay to appeal in the appellate court. What if the less expensive lawyer can get me a favorable judgment? So I started looking for not so famous B grade lawyers. I found one on a lawyers portal website. He had put his listing with the least possible information and only a Gmail id. That did not look professional to me at all and was rather a put-off. He had a one-pager website which looked like existed only for the heck of it. The only thing that got my interest in him was that he practiced in the same county where I had got the ticket. So I called him up and narrated the entire incident.
“Yeah, we get a lot of clients like that. It’s very common here. I will try to get you down to something that is not a misdemeanor or possibly get the ticket dismissed.” He said in a very calm voice.
“Dismissed?!? What is he talking about? No other lawyer that I spoke with ever uttered this word. This guy is a scam and only wants to make money from me by promising non-sense results!” I thought to myself. I was convinced that he is a B-grade lawyer for a reason and I can hear it in his promises.
“My charges are 200$ flat and I’d need you to take a defensive drivers course before I take your case to the judge.” He continued.
“200$ that’s all?!? Did he miss a zero? He is definitely a scam!” I reaffirmed my thoughts. I was not willing to waste my time further on him so I ended the conversation politely.
“Okay, Charles. Sounds good to me. Let me get back to you in a day or two.”
“Sure. Good luck and have a great day.” He said and hung up the phone.
I dismissed him as a scammer immediately after hanging up the phone and started looking at other lawyers, yet again with charges in the same 2000-5000$ category.
But the next day I re-evaluated my strategy. “There’s no harm in hiring him. After all, he is charging a meager sum of 200. Even if I land up losing, I still have the saved money to use to appeal to an appellate court.” I thought. A sum of 200 had started sounding meager to me after hearing the high quotes from other lawyers. So I called him up, paid 200 by my credit card and sealed the deal though I was still highly skeptical about my decision to hire him.
“Now, what I’d like you to do is to take a defensive drivers course as soon as you can. Have you taken one before?” he asked.
“Yes, I have.” I replied.
“When was it?”
“It was about 6 years ago.” I replied.
“Okay, that’s great because you can take only one every five years. So you’re good to go.” He said.
“Okay, but can I ask you why we are doing the other way around? Other attorneys said that they will strike a deal with the prosecutor first about me taking this course in lieu or reduced charges.” I asked.
“Well, I work in a different way. When I present your case to the judge, he is going to be appreciative of the fact that you’ve already taken the test so just do as I say for now.” He said in a tough tone.
After ending the conversation, I took an appointment for the course and finished it the next week. I sent him the certificate as he requested and waited for the court date.
I was at work when I received his email in the afternoon. It only wrote four words and had paperwork attached.
“Case Dismissed. See attached.”
What I thought was a B-grade scam lawyer turned out to be my hero. I wanted to give him a bonus and great feedback but he never replied to my emails after that. He was a no-nonsense underdog lawyer!
