My son slid into a ditch on Feb. 12, the first really bad snow day of the year. It was a 7 foot drop off along a fence lined road, so naturally he slid into a fence post. After several calls he got a ride to the house to call a tow truck. When he got back to his car it had been pulled from the ditch and was sitting on the road, along with the state hwy. patrol. They were going to impound his car, then allowed him to drive it home with a hole in the gas tank and a flat tire! He was only driving 25 mph and the heavy slush in the center of the road was pulling him so he corrected and slid into the ditch. His accident report (which had the wrong number) and the BMV record has the wrong date on it. He also had to pay 2 tow trucks as the one he actually called showed up and while talking to the state hwy. patrol another car went into the same ditch behind them. That is when the cop and the tow truck driver told him to drive on home and they would stop by after they took care of the other car, and he questioned the safety of driving it home. They told him to just drive slow! He was cited for Failure To Control and Juvenile Traffic Offender. He pleaded NOT GUILTY and now we have to go to a pre-trial. Do we have a chance to win this case as Ohio passed a new law that any driver under 17 who gets any moving violation loses their license for 6 months with NO driving privileges. My son works and will be having football coming up soon and I work full time?? Any advise is greatly appreciated.

P.S. I have the crash statistics for that day in our county there was 66 reported incidents, so that tells you how bad the roads actually were.

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Originally Posted by dswags

My son slid into a ditch on Feb. 12, the first really bad snow day of the year. It was a 7 foot drop off along a fence lined road, so naturally he slid into a fence post. After several calls he got a ride to the house to call a tow truck. When he got back to his car it had been pulled from the ditch and was sitting on the road, along with the state hwy. patrol. They were going to impound his car, then allowed him to drive it home with a hole in the gas tank and a flat tire! he was only driving 25 mph and the heavy slush in the center of the road was pulling him so he corrected and slid into the ditch. His accident report (which had the wrong number) and the BMV record has the wrong date on it. He also had to pay 2 tow trucks as the one he actually called showed up and while talking to the state hwy. patrol another car went into the same ditch behind them. That is when the cop and the tow truck driver told him to drive on home and they would stop by after they took care of the other car, and he questioned the safety of driving it home. They told him to just drive slow! He was cited for Failure To Control and Juvenile Traffic Offender. He pleaded NOT GUILTY and now we have to go to a pre-trial. Do we have a chance to win this case as Ohio passed a new law that any driver under 17 who gets any moving violation loses their license for 6 months with NO driving privileges. My son works and will be having football coming up soon and I work full time?????? Any advise is greatly appreciated.

P.S. I have the crash statistics for that day in our county there was 66 reported incidents, so that tells you how bad the roads actually were.

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I don't know why the Police do/did what they did but my thoughts are: there could be an issue because he hit a fence post, might have caused damaged, used his cell to call for a ride home and from there called a tow truck. He didn't call the Police. The Police came upon the accident and had no way of knowing where he was or if he was injured so they might have had attitudes.

I think he got a break because they allowed him to drive home and didn't impound the car - I don't know why there was any talk of an impound instead of a simple tow.

Not unusual that someone watching your son's accident scene would lose control by not paying attention and cause another accident. I spend a lot of my time dodging drivers who are looking at me instead of the road.

If he went off the road he did fail to control his car, bad weather or not - I understand your concern that there were 66 accidents in your County that day. One question will be why he was out and about - the Police are often not kind if you are out in bad weather, going to the Mall. The flip side of your argument is that X number of drivers were on the road and "only" 66 were involved in accidents and what is the normal number per day in your County - ? It's a hard call to make.

I certainly would go to Court with an Attorney - your son has too much to lose. Several people from Ohio have posted problems with V&T tickets over the past few months and what is done where I am - NYS - is not even close to the position some of the Ohio Courts have taken.

(Life is rough enough when you're a kid, let alone a going to school, playing football, working kid and I hope it works out for you - the above are just my thoughts as someone who investigates a lot of accidents and hears the arguments from and on both sides.)