Can a officer give out a ticket during bad weather and not witness what took place?

i would take the cop to court and fight!

Road conditions are not supposed to be an excuse for drivers in bad weather. If you have been driving for a few miles and were well aware of the conditions then you should be driving according to those conditions. Chances are that she may have been the only one that evening that hit that median. Why is that? Because other drivers were going slower and maintained control of their vehicle. Lucky she isn't in Ontario, Canada, we don't have the kind of charge you describe, all we have is "careless driving" which is defined as driving without due care and attention, it is $325 and 6 points. Sometimes you get a stretch of road that hundreds of cars use in bad weather and one of them loses control and goes in the ditch. Why did that one go in the ditch? (We don't have to attend if there is no damage to vehicles or highway property).

We are instructed that we should consider laying charges even with bad road conditions if the road conditions are bad everywhere. The only time you may be able to use the road condition "excuse" is where there is an unusual occurrence. For example, you have a bare road and suddenly around a bend there is a three foot high snowdrift that causes you to lose control.

Your wife may have a good chance of winning this one in court if the justice believes that the speed she was going at was not unsafe given the road conditions.

How much damage to her vehicle? If it was totalled or had lots of damage it may show that she was going faster than 30.

I deal with many,many winter accidents and I'd say that 95% of the ones involving two or more vehicles I lay some kind of charge. Each single motor vehicle accident is different but I usually don't lay charges if there is no damage to the vehicle or to highway property. If there are many vehicles going into the ditch on a particular stretch of highway I won't lay charges for single motor vehicle accidents.

At any speed where you slide off the road, that is a speed which is too fast for the driving conditions. By seeing the car off the road, that is witness enough. It is the responsibility of the driver to go slow enough not to drive off the road. And if that is impossible, then you shouldn't drive. But in most cases where it is really snowy and icy, the police will not give a ticket if no damage was done to the median or another car. The cops was probably just in a bad mood.

Officers are allowed to ticket drivers involved in accidents based on "fact and belief". Your wife, regardless of what damage was done, drove her vehicle at an unsafe speed for the conditions and had an single vehicle accident. She then told the officer what happened. He then examined the scene. Based on that, he can form "fact and belief" and issue a ticket.

Cops usually give tickets for driving behaviors that can cause accidents. When an accident actually occurs, it is a very appropriate time to give a ticket. If the same circumstances were in place and a pedestrian were in the median, she could have injured or killed them.

Ok, I was a police officer for years, first why did she call 911 to start with, and not just call a tow truck ?? She actually is the cause of it for calling them.

Next what does the officer think could happen the medium jumped out in front of her when she was not looking.

The officer will listen to what she says, she tells him, I was driving and slid into the medium, she has now just confessed.

Did she say someone cut her off, someone ran out in front of her, The officer can also look at the ruts and tell what happened.

But yes, he can take the available evidence and issue a ticket to the person who appears to be at fault due to the evidence avialable

So all you have to do is merely prove that she did not slid into the medium and you get her off.

There was a collision, and when that happens they use science to figure out what happened and who is at fault. 30 in packed snow is still far too fast. A hundred dollars is really not so bad, she could have recieved a much worse ticket. Here in NV there is a 290 dollar ticket called "failure to show due care" and if the cop was in a bad mood he probably would have given her the PA equivalent.

Since your wife did not mention something else that could be to blame, like a streaker ran out in front of her car and she hit him and then swerved into the median, the cop had to reason that it could be no one else's fault but hers

Actually he has a point and it might hold up in court. the Officer's argument may be "If your wife was driving at the recommended speed for these conditions, the accident would not have happen." If she admitted to driving at a speed higher the the recommended speed, she just implicated herself. On the NJ-Turnpike, speed limits vary according to the conditions on the road. You are required to obey them. Is there a "poor conditions speed limit" documented? If so, you couldn't even plead ignorance. If your wife did not commit a crime, then she can fight it. However, if she did, she is guilty whether she was seen or not. Good luck.

Failure to control speed.

If you lose control of your vehicle, you are at fault. If you are behind a truck that jack-knifes, you hit your brakes, you do not hit a vehicle, but go off the road or what have you. No other vehicles hit you, no other parties involved, no damage to your vehicle, doesn't matter. It is failure to control speed.

Although the officer is not there to witness it, and there are no other witnesses, your wife's vehicle has left the roadway clearly due to her failure to control speed.

i undrstand your frustration in this situation yet what did she state to the officer? also as every other state on the back of the ticket there is a spot to check not guilty i would reccomend that you have her think carefully about what she told the officer have her check not guilty on the back of the ticket appear in court and state the facts the ticket will most likley be dropped good luck on this issue answered by a legal consultant

Obviously, the officer just assumed things; and we all know what happens when people assume things...

I think you've got a case if you want to challenge it in court...

Vandevere