Off road parks and racetracks are recognized as "authorized" recreation areas. If the ticket was issued on your land, it will be pretty easy to clear up, with the DA prior to your court date.

If it's not your land you will need the land owner to authorize you and give you permission to have been there.

If you don't have proof that you are OK to be where you are, the cop will write you. Again, his job is to protect everyone - if he thinks you are where you shouldn't be (they may have had a rash of that lately) he is well within his duties to write you. Just because you have a ticket doesn't prove guilt. The burden of proof is still on the DA in court - however, you have to be able to defend that you had a right to be there doing what you were doing.

The DA will need to prove that you were 1) not authorized to do what you were doing and 2) driving recklessly (the cop's word is proof enough in most states on driving violations).

If it's your land and you can prove ownership (or have owner's permission) and were not endangering others, you should have it settled with the DA before court. Most DA's will look at the endangering portion and make their decision - if there's people where you might hit them you'd be toast, if not it shouldn't be an issue.

Again, ever thread that I have ever read on the internet about getting a ticket for off-roading was because whoever started the thread was breaking the law.

As a side note, as far as I know, in every state DWI/OWI is illegal even on private land. Your license authorizes you to drive or operate a motor vehicle within the state (reciprocal agreements allow you to drive in other states). DWI/OWI are not breaking normal traffic laws, they fall into another category of protections - OWI (operating while intoxicated) is extremely easy for them to make stick, putting the key into the ignition is "operating" by law.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryndon
I have a lot of cops as friends, and yes, some do have an ego issue.

My experience is that few cops will write you when you not doing anything wrong. Even the one that wrote me for 3 miles over!!! I was only ever written once for something that was questionable.

Cops are supposed to enforce the law. If you don't break it, you are not likely to get written - pretty simple. They are not judge, jury, or executioner. If it's a bad ticket, take it to court. But, if it was trespassing (likely or he would have posted "we were on my buddy's land...") he will lose.

Ever notice that almost every post post about getting a ticket is from someone that was breaking the law?



LAME!!!!!

Hey Stiffly, curious what you think is lame? One word posts don't really tell us anything.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this topic might be exploding out of proportion here... It doesn't sound like he was out in the middle of some private property. I'd be willing to guess that he and his friend saw some water/mud in a ditch and wanted to drive through it (tempting to us all). In that case, he was driving through the public right-of-way and that would totally be the police jurisdiction, no questions asked.

Just throwing out a possible explanation. Till Stock97Bogger comes back on the site for his second time (he's only posted once!) and gives us more details, we won't know.

The main thing to take away from this story... look around for cops before you play around in the mud

 

i was under the impression (at least in my state), that traffic laws applied to state/city/county roads and right-of-ways only. You cant be cited for any traffic offense or vehicle offense if your not operating on a public road, highway, or interstate. And i know that down here we only have DUI and DWI, but they both fall under traffic offenses and are enforced as such. Maybe other states are a bit different than MS but Im positive that down here a cop cannot cite you for any type of traffic offense if your not operating on a public roadway that is governed by the laws of the city/state/county

 

Not to get off subject, but down here in Virginia "bad driver fees" were just instated this year. So any speeding ticket you get you have to pay the ticket plus $300 per year for 3 years. If its a wreckless ticket $350-400 per year for 3 years. Anybody else have something like that where you live?