Ok, you get pulled over and the cop wants to write your whole group of riders a ticket. There's four of us, I'm one of two who actually went out together. The other two were just two guys we caught up to. The lead guy takes off leaving a curve and gets pulled over. His buddy stops, me and my buddy keep going. The cop has his partner stop us two miles down the road. "We were all together" when he measured our speed but does'nt know which of us he got. Gave us a lecture on riding safely... Going to court on this one... Is this the law?
If the cop stated he wasnt sure which one he got the speed on, you can argue in court that the one ahead was going the fastest, and that you were obviously slower. Part of his affidavit says that he can verify it was you. yours should be easy to get dismissed.
(As a guy that writes tickets, I would not have written all of the guys in the group in that case, unless I could verify all were going that speed. That's pretty crappy that he did that.)
It depends..............
On how the state law is written where you are
AND
Precident, if any, for similar cases
AND
How good the LEO is with explaining his story
AND
Which judge you get and what kind of mood he/she is in at the time.
The odds are usually stacked heavily against the "offender" in traffic cases.
Take it to court, my last ticket was a parking ticket issued in a Walmart parking lot. I took it to court, ticket dismissed. My record is clean for over 10 years, important for insurance cos, also because I have a class A CDL a ticket can effect my part time job.
alot of states dont require that you are the one tagged by the radar, only that the cop has a reliable method of gauging your speed. this is generally the case in the states that allow aircraft to signal the folks on the ground that you need a ticket. or where the police have lobbied enough for "gang enforcement" ( the 1 bike cop hides and calls his buddies a mile down the road to write the ticket).
some states ( texas may still be one but i havent looked) a failure to appear will negate the speeding ticket. its more expensive but doesnt show on your record for insurance. ( unknown about CDL affects).
cali will however the failure is 2 points and the speeding is generally 1 so its not worth it.
or a decent lawyer can generally game the system by pushing off your court appearances until the cop doesnt show one day, and/or generally making it more expensive to prosecute the ticket than it would generate in revenues. . again more expensive than paying it off mostly.
in this case i think the 2 miles down the road and a different cop are your saving points. i would ask for a recording from the dash/radio cam to make sure he told the other cop your plate number and/or more of a description than 2 bikes. if he called forward with your plate number then you're pretty much hosed.
if you do go to court to fight the ticket you could call to question the maintenance of the Radar device being used. They must be calibrated and there are several different test an operator should run prior to using the radar. An improperly maintained radar device can show faulty speeds whether dealing with stationary or moving situations. In Canada there is case law that requires the officer perform the calibration test prior to use.
Last year I got a monster ticket of 22 over by an out of town Statie. I was doing the speed of traffic 72 around a bend marked 50 through a portion of the canyon where if you aren't doing 20 over the erroneously posted limits you are going to be a hood ornament. Literally, I was doing walking speed passed a Prius. Can't stress enough that I wasn't racing. Went to fight it, geared up with arguments. One of which being that the following week I tried going through at the posted limits, and aside from getting the bird from damn near every driver but the bus drivers, I was scared it would cause an accident and be considered reckless. When I got there, there was no judge, no court, just a recorder who had heard the same arguments all day and admitted to having a lead foot herself. She marked it down to 1-5 over and gave me a point instead of six. Deal.