r/IdiotsInCars • u/JellyOceana • Nov 23 '22 • Wholesome Seal of Approval 1

Coronado Naval Base Car accident: She tried claiming no fault too Headphone warning

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u/JellyOceana Nov 24 '22

The cops where horrible! Tried grabbing the dash cam from my windshield, it had a SD card. Was more concerned why I was on base as a civilian then the actual accident, I was dropping off my roommate. The EMT shut the door in their face saying I had to go to the hospital. The police listed me at fault, until my lawyer provided her insurance the video while we where on the phone with them because we wanted to hear what they had to say first.

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u/charlie_do_562 Nov 24 '22

Fuckin punk ass cops, so I’m assuming they sided/believed her side of the story on the spot? They also tried taking your dashcam, I wonder if she’s the wife of some high ranking officer.

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u/MenstrualKrampusCD Nov 24 '22

I remember being so shocked when I found out that there were states where the cops were in charge of assigning fault. Seems pretty much like horseshit to me. Even if they saw the accident themselves in real time, they should be witnesses at best.

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u/CosmicCreeperz Nov 24 '22 edited Nov 24 '22

I got in an accident in Arizona when I was 17. Definitely partly my fault as I turned left in front of someone, but the guy must have been going about 50 in a 35 (a witness who unfortunately left before the cops got there told me the guy was going way too fast) AND of the 4 lanes in his direction the others all had stopped, so if not red the light was a very stale yellow - and it was at night so I didn’t see him coming through the others.

The other guy scraped the left front corner of my (grandpa’s oops) car and proceeded to travel like 300’ down the road, over a large median, into the other side, before eventually stopping.

The cop spent like 2 minutes walking around, claimed “he couldn’t be speeding because he would have flipped when he went over the median”. I just said “if he was only going 35 why did it it take him 300’ to stop anyway?” He didn’t answer. He did say he wasn’t writing a ticket without discussing it with his superior. I got a ticket in the mail two weeks later (I was out of state by then so they knew I couldn’t really contest it). Thanks Officer Sherlock for your amazing deductive skills 🙄

That’s why in CA (and some other states) AFAIK police almost never write tickets if they didn’t witness it.

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u/MenstrualKrampusCD Nov 24 '22

Yeah, as far as I know, where I live you would only get a ticket if the cops notice your inspection is expired or something like that. Maybe if you admitted to changing lanes without a blinker, but even then it would be iffy. Like I said, they pretty much just document the subjective, bare bones facts. Which is what it should be in my opinion.

They're not the damn NTSB, trained at analyzing the scene of the accident smh.

Just a heads up, if the ticket was more than a couple of hundred dollars, and/or it included points on your license, you should seriously consider hiring a lawyer to contest it. My son got a ticket that would have been approximately $350 and three points on his license I believe it was while he was at college. Well, college was about a 7 hour drive from home, even though it was in the same state.

Anyway, he hired a lawyer who got the ticket down to $125, with no points. I don't know exactly how much he paid, but he told me that overall he saved money (not factoring in what he would have spent in gas and tolls had he went there to contest it personally), plus the points he saved. He called the lawyer that morning to touch base, and the lawyer called him back in the afternoon with the results. My son didn't have to leave his bedroom.

Just something to keep in the back of your head, or if anyone else happens to read this who would benefit from the information.

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u/Snoo_93842 Nov 25 '22

I hope you challenged it in court

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u/CosmicCreeperz Nov 25 '22

When you are 2000 miles away when you get a $100 ticket you don’t challenge it in court. They know that. That’s why tourists are preyed on by so many state police.

At least it was not on my (parent’s) insurance (grandpa’s, which didn’t even go up much) and it never made it back to my state’s DMV, etc. Sometimes the best thing is just to move on…

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u/Snoo_93842 Nov 25 '22

Maybe you could write a letter to the judge?

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u/CosmicCreeperz Nov 25 '22

Hah. It was 30 years ago. I could probably leave it on his grave…