VC-27400 is FRICKIN' STOOPID!!

[Kaveh]

It's usually a commissioner. And yes, you get to have a trial if you lose the declaration.

As far as what was "intended", you violated that. Intending you to not cover both of your ears while you drive. I still think you could get some mercy but you never know.

I think the law was "intending" to prevent drivers from impairing their hearing by having their ears blocked by headphones.  *My* view is that my handsfree earbuds when off (or on for that matter) don't impair my hearing.  I have a set of noise isolating earbuds that cost over $100 that I use with my ipods and are awesome.  They are great for flying and working out.  They are totally different than my handsfree earbuds.  Hopefully the commissioner hears my argument and agrees with me.  My hearing wasn't impaired at all, not even by a few decibels (IMHO).  But if the commissioner feels what I was doing was truly unsafe and explains it to me I am totally willing to accept that.  I just hope I don't get found guilty with no explanation and a decision made without thinking about the situation (even if it i for just a few seconds) ,and that it is somewhat "unique" and some "digesting" of the arguments made.     well see what happens, I fear that sometimes traffic enforcement is a revenue generating process and not a safety enforcement process.

[Kaveh]

Oh, I was able to track down on the net how much the bail is.

It's $99 and I *believe* it's not a moving violation.  I didn't fully understand the table I was reading (it was a 240+ page pdf and I didn't feel like reading all the pages explaining the tables (25+ pages), I'll do that later...

[sonofabike]

(23123 (a) CVC) he cited you for the headset/earplug law.

The operative words in that particular line of the code is BOTH EARS.  You can't have both ears covered, exceptions for earplugs notwithstanding.

+1 on ticketassassin.  I'd give it a fight just for the hell of it.

[knightrider]

i dont really think your argument of it not even being on will hold, just because he caught you when it was not in use doesnt mean that it is not illegal. earbuds are earbuds, most hands free headsets are only a single earbud because its illegal to wear them in both ears while driving. the only reason headphone style earbuds that go in both ears are popular for phones now is because they play music and are replacing peoples standalone mp3 players, but that doesnt mean that it is safe or legal to use both while driving.

now i agree that the cop really handled the situation the wrong way, ive had a cop pull me over from a group of 15 cars cruising down the street and have him tell me that he was going to make an example of me.  that case got thrown out because of the cops lack of professionalism.  so i would use that angle.

[Kaveh]

i dont really think your argument of it not even being on will hold, just because he caught you when it was not in use doesnt mean that it is not illegal. earbuds are earbuds, most hands free headsets are only a single earbud because its illegal to wear them in both ears while driving. the only reason headphone style earbuds that go in both ears are popular for phones now is because they play music and are replacing peoples standalone mp3 players, but that doesnt mean that it is safe or legal to use both while driving.

now i agree that the cop really handled the situation the wrong way, ive had a cop pull me over from a group of 15 cars cruising down the street and have him tell me that he was going to make an example of me.  that case got thrown out because of the cops lack of professionalism.  so i would use that angle.

After having a day to digest this, yeah, I wouldn't have been pissed if the cop wasn't a dick.  If he dropped the attitude and said something along the lines of, 'the law is that you can't have both ears covered due to safety, so you can hear traffic noises.  I understand that you use this for your phone, but still the law is the law.'  Anything like that would've been fine.  I would have been irked and kinda pissed that I have to pay a fine and I was trying to comply with the new law, but whatever.  It's not a moving violation, that's my main concern.

But that's not what happened, I felt like I was 12 again and a pissed off, grumpy adult who is not my family was chastising me.  Not for my benefit, but so they can get their jollies off 

$99, I don't know if I am going to fight it or not, I guess I might as well do a trial by written declaration.  That doesn't cost me that much time.  I'll state why I don't think I deserve the ticket because I was trying to comply with the handsfree law and I wasn't using the earbuds for music.  I hope the commissioner actually 'thinks' about this one instead of just throwing a guilty verdict out there and collecting $$.  In my argument I guess in one way I will be basically saying that I did have the earbuds in both ears...I guess it's totally up to the commissioner...I'm probably make the beast with two backsed