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Getting a ticket in NJ

Getting a ticket in NJ is a very easy thing to do, here’s my experience, well, not mine, but my wife’s really. My wife works in a mall near my home, and since we have a little girl, she always rushes home when she gets off work, but the road she took has a gazillions of traffic lights, she found a short way one day, by driving thru a parking lot, she can cut the time to home by almost 5 minutes. I was really skeptical about this method, but didn’t think there was any harm in driving thru the parking lot, so I just told her to slow down in the parking lot, and left at that. This past Friday, when I came home, she showed me a traffic ticket. I was shocked, and asked how fast she was going? She said the cop pulled her over from the parking lot exit, saying he had seen her driving thru the parking lot to avoid traffic a couple of times already, and it’s against the law to do that. I felt this must be a mistake, no one ever get a parking ticket from driving thru the parking lot, so I went online, and researched it. Lo and behold, there’s such a law, and it comes with at least 100 dollar fine. The most despicable thing about NJ cop, especially Metuchen cops, is they won’t let you know how much the fine is, until you go to the court. I suspect this is to increase their court costs.  I went to the court last night, and sure enough, the D.A asked for maximum penalty, but I was prepared, I asked for evidence from the cop about his “so called” witness  of my wife’s past driving thru the parking lot, and he couldn’t provide that. Then I told the judge that my wife wanted to buy some cloths for her cousins, but at the last minute, remembered she don’t have her cousin’s size,  that’s why she didn’t stop at the clothing store.  This created a reasonable doubt in my case, and the judge throw out the ticket. Needless to say, I was really happy, truth be told, I wasn’t really sure if I can convince the judge of any thing, I only said what I said because I was hoping to get a reduced ticket, but again, according to the law, once there’s a reasonable doubt in the case, the judge can make the final judgment based on that doubt. I was really lucky that night, oh well, my wife was lucky, and she won’t ever drive thru the parking lot to avoid a traffic light again. The reason I wanted to tell the story is, a lot of times, we Chinese are afraid of court, but if we base our stories on facts, and embellish the truth a little, so to create a reasonable doubt, the court can be your friend, don’t be afraid of the court, do the research, and fight for your money.

Glad to see your article again in our section.

Human rights always comes in 1st priority in US ~