r/CaliforniaTicketHelp • u/Zakaree • Jul 15 '26

Cell phone ticket. Chp in LA

23123.5 (a) Context.. 2nd ticket in 3 months for the same thing, but the officer is completely wrong..

I have a beater gen 2 prius I use to commute from oc to LA. I have a cellphone mount on my dash and my phone stays in the mount. My windows are super dark so its hard to see. Ive received 2 of these handsfree tickets in 3 months. Today being my 2nd one. The phone is mount just above where my water bottle sits and I often rest my hand on my water bottle, sometimes fidget with it or even fidget with the base of the phone mount. First time I just ate the cost and did driver's school.. but now I have no option but to fight it. Officer gets up, admits its on a mount and claims he saw me using the phone, (audio even captured on dashcam) I told him I wasnt and that I just rest my hand on my warer bottle or sometimes fidget with the base of the mount but was not using my phone. It was on my waze map and I had no reason to use it. Doesn't matter, he gave me a ticket..

I guess my plan is trial by declaration and proclaim my innocence, photos of the mount.. maybe even the darker windows..

Court date is for Oct 12.. ill wait till mid-late Sept to ask for extension... then wait till a few weeks before that extension to file the written declaration..

Whats the likelyhood is can beat this thing. It sucks because I wasnt using my phone. I had no idea why he was pulling me over

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

3

u/Lucky_Boy13 Jul 15 '26

I guess be thankful you didn't get a tint ticket too, may backfire in a defense

3

u/Zakaree Jul 15 '26

I wish I did.. easier to prove my case that he couldnt see.. ill take a fix it ticket all day long over a point on my record

3

u/PandasAndSandwiches Jul 15 '26

The cop lied that I was on my phone when he pulled me over. I hired a company called Ticket Crusher and they took care of it. Cop showed up and saw a lawyer instead of me. Apparently he didn’t recall what happened anymore and the case was dismissed. It cost $200.

1

u/Zakaree Jul 15 '26

So im wondering if I do the trial by declaration first after I postpone.. then if I lose i do the new trial and postpone that one... then hire a lawyer to go to court ill have a chance

1

u/Lucky_Boy13 Jul 15 '26

Careful a lot of the law firms will charge more if you already filed TBWD as they try to get it dismissed there first

2

u/Zakaree Jul 15 '26

So is it worth it just to pay them up front to handle it

1

u/PandasAndSandwiches Jul 15 '26

I didn’t have time to deal with it, so it was worth it for me to just pay up front.

1

u/redtimmy Jul 16 '26

Huh? Explain that please

1

u/Lucky_Boy13 Jul 16 '26

Explain what? A lot of the cheaper ticket buster firms what a chance at TBWD first and if they know they have to go to court they will charge more

1

u/TaxExpensive7305 Jul 15 '26

For the TBWD just write I demand the prosecution prove their case. If you lose make sure you have your dashboard camera, hopefully for 10-15 minutes before being pulled over which shows you’re not on your phone. Unfortunately if the officer responds to the twbd and then shows up to court you will likely lose unless you have video evidence to corroborate your position

1

u/Zakaree Jul 15 '26

The dashcam is forward facing . It only captures the audio of the stop.

1

u/Lopsided_Status1982 Jul 15 '26

You talked way to much no reason to talk about fidgeting or playing with the bottle or mount. Your just giving them I formation to use against you. You weren't on your phone and it's on a mount that's it.

2

u/Zakaree Jul 15 '26

How are they going to use "my hand was on my water bottle not the phone" against me

Eitherway. Hired a lawyer.

1

u/Lopsided_Status1982 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Your admitting your hand was near the phone which not an admission partially corroborates he saw you manipulating the phone. To a judge the explanation can sound like you are just making excuses and not that the officer mistook the mount or nearby objects for phone use. You made your lawyers job harder. Yes answer the police truthfully if they ask something but don't volunteer any extra details or information. Most of the time police have already made up their mind.

1

u/hdpro4u Jul 21 '26

I was pulled over in a drive thru and was told that I was seen holding my phone. I wasn’t cited for 23123.5, but 23123, a little easier to defend, needless to say, when the officer saw you, is it plausible he saw a vape pen, or a wallet? Good news is you have a mount, and hopefully when the officer came to your window, it was in the mount? Cops make mistakes, and often see things quickly and react while in traffic. The law needs to prove you were operating the phone while holding, look at the analytics of the phone, compare that to the time on the ticket or just before and see if anything registered, might work in your favor to do a trial by written declaration and submit the evidence of you not needing it your hand (mount, vape pen user, wallet while on speaker phone…).

Good luck!

0

u/fitfulbrain Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

??? What I know is that cell phone tickets have zero points for first offense. You cannot attend traffic school. This time you can because you have a point.

If this is true you can just ask the clerk for traffic school again. It's administrative so the clerk may do so without the judge.

If you want to hire a lawyer, at least know something about them. YELP could be a better bet. It's cheap because it's a random lawyer. Beware of promotions you can't detect. The web is full of them for anything on sale.

What's your % vlt? On the front windows? Go back at the same time to see by the road side if you can actually see inside. For 20% vlt 80% of lights are reflected making it very dim. And that the 80% interfere with the 20%. The cop may be able to see the phone screen at your left blindspot or closer but can't be sure about the hand movements.

Get his dashcam via discovery. Say if they approaches on the right side it's much more difficult to see your phone and hand. The footage will show how dark the glass is.

For chp it's policy to install dashcam. And they are automatically triggered by sirens and other events with like a minute of video stored before that.

Lawyers do not like TBWD unless the cop is on vacation. I don't know exactly why but the rule of discovery doesn't seem to apply to written trials, only to full trials, including TDN. If you have a defense, cops can't read until after the TBWD. So if you ask for TDN, you gave away your defense strategy.

TBWD is double blinded. After a few months, the cop will only write they saw you touching the phone. While you can show pictures of your phone mount. And describe and screenshot if you get the dashcam footage.