My speedometer must be broken…. You must have me confused with another car… I think your radar gun needs calibrating… I think that super-fast deer over there is the one who should get the ticket… One of these statements is not a common excuse for trying to get out of a speeding ticket.
The Newburyport Daily News brings us the story of a Massachusetts man who recently raised the speed-demon deer theory as a reason for why the court should throw out his ticket for allegedly going 40 mph in a 30 mph zone.
In court last week he questioned the officer who wrote the ticket, asking him if was 100% sure that his radar device had captured his speed, or perhaps a really fast deer that could have been in the area at the time.
“You’re not contending the radar picked up the deer?” the judge asked, as the courtroom giggled.
The defendant replied that anything was possible. However, the judge ruled in favor of West Newbury police minutes later and imposed the original $105 fine.
“In the 30-plus years of me being a police chief, I have never heard anyone use that defense and expect it to succeed,” West Newbury’s police chief said.
His scape-deering isn’t the first time we’ve heard of drivers handing over some wild excuses to get out of speeding tickets — some which have actually turned out to be true:
• A Florida driver called 9-1-1 to report a fake murder in order to lure police away from the scene of his traffic violation.
• The 22-year-old driver who showed police officers proof that he’d really and truly won $50,000 after he was pulled over for speeding.
• The motorcyclist who was hit with a hefty fine after he was caught going 140 mph, all because he said he really, really had to pee.
*The deer in the image accompanying this story is not, to our knowledge, related to this incident.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist