"Too Fast for Conditions" Ticket Dismissed

Posted Wednesday, September 15, 2021 by Andrew Charles Huff

A great outcome in a Contested Hearing today regarding an accident case in King County alleging that my client was driving too fast for the conditions on the road after being in a one-vehicle accident.

Under RCW 46.61.400, a person shall not drive a motor vehicle at a speed greater than is “reasonable and prudent under the conditions and having regard to the actual and potential hazards then existing.” In this case, the client went off the road in her vehicle when making a sharp turn around a curve but maintained the legal speed limit. The overhead lighting was dimmed by an outage and visibility was not the greatest. But the citing officer, who did not witness the incident, failed to indicate in his report whether “hazards” existed and what the “conditions” were at the time of the crash. Rather, the report contained baseless subjective speculation of what the officer thought had happened, but failed to explain what the conditions were at the time of the incident.

Case dismissed.