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How much do traffic attorneys cost these days? I saw in the AI thread that it was $50-150, but that post was from 2007, and in Texas. I'm in Ohio, I have two other citations in the last 12 months, and a couple of weeks ago, I was driving to work in some snow/slush, lost control as I went down a hill, and ended up in a ditch. I didn't involve anyone else or anyone else's property, and it didn't look like there was much damage to my car, even, so I flagged down a car that came by right after, met them at the bottom of the hill, and borrowed their cell phone to call work and a tow truck. I had a coworker email my wife, because our phone line was down, but our internet wasn't. Since I didn't have a cell phone, and it was cold, I decided to try walking back towards home, mainly to keep warm. I left a note in my window saying where I'd gone. I ended up being offered a ride, met my wife, headed back to meet the tow truck, and a highway patrolman was there with the tow truck. He asked me if I was the driver (yes), and if I wanted a report (no), and why I didn't call 911, which threw me, since I didn't see my situation as an emergency, and wasn't sure if there was any real damage beyond losing my right-side mirror at that point. The highway patrolman stuck around and started taking pictures, so I asked him if he wanted a statement, gave it to him, and he cited me under ORC 4511.202 - failure to maintain reasonable control. The thing is, I don't know what else I could have done. I had already gone some 10 miles with no problems, the roads were in relatively good shape, and I had seen evidence in the past that the hill I was approaching was always heavily treated, not to mention there was no snow or slush at the top - it was just wet. When I started down, I put my car in first gear so I wouldn't have to brake much, and this has worked on hills in the past. As far as I've read, this is everything you're supposed to do in the snow. Admittedly, though, I'm from California and I've only been in Ohio for about 3.5 years, and this is only the second winter I've needed to drive to any significant degree. On the report I downloaded, I see that he asked me how fast I was going when I lost control, and I remember thinking about it, since I wasn't exactly looking at my speedometer at the time, and I said 20 mph, tops. But that was when I was already rolling down, and arguably I had already lost control at that point, if my guess was even accurate. Was that why he cited me? I just don't understand what "reasonable control" means in the context. From my point of view, I had exercised caution and done everything my limited experience and my reading had told me to do, and aside from just turning around and taking a different route - which I had no reason to think I should do - I don't know what else I could have done to prevent it. Can someone explain this to me? I don't even think it's fair that I should get cited for loving up my own car and damaging nothing else.
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Feb 23, 2010 16:39
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:51 |
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