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Originally Posted by GMAN
Perhaps you can elaborate more on the charge and ticket? Were you weaving? Were you changing lanes in an unsafe manner? Is there anything else mentioned on the ticket?
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The ticket has a lot of checkboxes for various offenses, none of which is checked off. In a category of "other" the officer wrote "weaving", and in a box for statute number, wrote 39:4-88b, which is, of course, for weaving, with verbiage about unsafe lane changes, in the NJ website for such things.
I do not think I was weaving much, if at all. I have noticed myself weaving slightly, when there are no cars around, just going a few inches over the line, but when in traffic, I keep it in the lane, of course.
The officer said I was "all over the road", which is bs, unless I was in some sort of trance and oblivious to things. There were 4 or 5 lanes going the same direction. He said I weaved into the leftmost lane for a while, then went all the way across 2 lanes to the right. Weaving into the leftmost lane is a nono, I agree, but moving 2 lanes to the right isn't such a big deal. How else do you move to the right???
Here's the problem, probably : He said I almost hit his cruiser at one point. That's when he decided to waste his time and pull me over.
I was pretty tired, and had actually pulled off to have a nap a few minutes before I got pulled over.
I didn't contradict the officer, thinking I would just get a warning, and also thinking that being polite and cooperative would be the best policy for me here. He had me rooting around for registration for a while. The truck had about 6 different registrations, but not the one he wanted. No ticket for that, though.
He noticed my hearing protection earmuffs in my duffelbag and asked if I wore them in the truck. I said "no". No ticket for that.
He grabbed my log book off the passenger seat without asking. The log book was current. No problem there.
He asked for my license and med card. All OK there, but he acted annoyed that mt med card was going to expire in a month.
There was another cop with him staring at me with a look of wrorry and fear. Mimicing me, perhaps? The NJ cops like to have 2 cops at every stop, I notice.
He said I was doing 65 - 70 in a 55. It's true, I was doing up to 68 mph, and it was a 55 zone. No ticket for that.
When I got pulled over I thought I would get a speeding ticket, not weaving.
He asked me if I were tired. I said "yes". He said I should pull over and rest if I get tired. I didn't tell him I had just done that a few minutes ago, thinking that would just "prove" I was too tired to drive.
I was at a "normal" level of tiredness, pretty maxed out but not nodding off. I wonder if he is lying about me almost hitting his car. Why would he lie? Don't know. Maybe they are picking on trucks lately, and he needs an excuse to pull them over???
But I still think I wasn't weaving significantly enough for a ticket. I may have gone into the left lane for a second or 2 as I was changing the radio station or inserting a cd, since there were no cars around. I check the mirrors for cars before I take my eyes off the road to do anything like that. And no, I wasn't changing lanes in an unsafe manner. Moving over 2 lanes to the right isn't unsafe.
It's his "you were all over the road" comment that makes me think he is lying. No way was I "all over the road".
