I was dropping my friend off at their house and I hit a car parallel parking, the only thing I damaged was the cover of the tail light and it only had a lil piece broken off. So right after that a guy comes running out the house saying he's going to call the police, so I speak to a lady of the house who was the actual owner of the vehicle, we exchange numbers and I told her that I will cover the expenses of the broken tail light cover. she seem calm about the situation and she said ok. so I soon leave the area after that about 30 min later, I get a call from the friend I was dropping off that the police had shown up and the owners of the vehicle were claiming I fled the scene.
So shortly after I arrived back at the scene and I didn't see the cops or the owners of the vehicle, apparently they had left so I went inside my friends house for a while and soon left to only go back to my vehicle to see some paper stuck in my door with an accident report number and before I got a chance to read it, a cop car pulls on the side of me out of nowhere and hands me a couple citations and pulls off before I can even say anything. I read the note on the piece of paper claiming tickets will be mailed to me because I allegedly hung up on the cop when I didn't get the call to begin with because my signal was bad in that area. so I'm stuck paying tickets for failure to notify police and unsafe backing of vehicle amounting to over $200 and I thought that was ridiculous considering the minor damage that was done.
So basically I want to know if im justified in the actions I took and would I have a good chance at disputing these citations because for one, I gave them my name and number and told them I will cover the expenses so its not like I fled the scene and I didn't feel the need to notify the police over something that minor but apparently they did.
I never been to court over a citation so Im curious to know how the whole process works, will the officer who gave the citation be present at the court? My friend is also my witness since he was there when it happen and I wanted to know if I can have a witness at my side to back my story up.
So shortly after I arrived back at the scene and I didn't see the cops or the owners of the vehicle, apparently they had left so I went inside my friends house for a while and soon left to only go back to my vehicle to see some paper stuck in my door with an accident report number and before I got a chance to read it, a cop car pulls on the side of me out of nowhere and hands me a couple citations and pulls off before I can even say anything. I read the note on the piece of paper claiming tickets will be mailed to me because I allegedly hung up on the cop when I didn't get the call to begin with because my signal was bad in that area. so I'm stuck paying tickets for failure to notify police and unsafe backing of vehicle amounting to over $200 and I thought that was ridiculous considering the minor damage that was done.
So basically I want to know if im justified in the actions I took and would I have a good chance at disputing these citations because for one, I gave them my name and number and told them I will cover the expenses so its not like I fled the scene and I didn't feel the need to notify the police over something that minor but apparently they did.
I never been to court over a citation so Im curious to know how the whole process works, will the officer who gave the citation be present at the court? My friend is also my witness since he was there when it happen and I wanted to know if I can have a witness at my side to back my story up.