Arrested in the US upon entry?
 

Hello guys,

I have a bit of an awkward situation - a bit less than one year ago I was traveling in the US and in Utah on a highway I was stopped by a police officer for speeding; He was driving towards me then turning behind me and pulling me over; Now the weird thing is that I set the cruise control to 9 mph over the limit but he gave me a citation for 12mph over the limit and it was a very flat road so either the measurement was incorrect(more likely) or the speedometer of my car showed a too slow speed;

I then wrote a letter to the judge explaining the situation and also wrote an email but they did not believe me and feeling deceived and not taken seriously, I did not pay the fine; Since I returned back to Europe a few days later I did not suffer any consequences; Now thinking about that, it was quite stupid as I just hurt myself with it and also, even if the measurement is wrong, I was still speeding but in that situation I just felt like I am being wrongly accused and no one believes me;

Now today on https :// secure.utah .gov/warrants/index. html I saw that there is actually a warrant for speeding - to be honest I was quite shocked as warrants in Europe are only issued if you really did something bad like beating up a person, fraud etc but certainly not for speeding 12mph over the limit;

I am not planning to travel to the US within the next years but of course this makes me worried about the whole situation...

Considering that i was just driving 9 mph over the limit to make it to the national park by sunset to take some nice picture and now I'm wanted by the police makes me think how quickly that escalated...

So what would actually happen if I decide to try entering the US (via some other state like California, New York etc.)... Will I be rejected at the border? Arrested? Just charged some price?

I am a bit afraid but now paying the fine also feels silly as the 150$ fine probably added up to 500$ or more with additional fees etc.

If you go back to the US and try to rent a car, the unpaid fine will almost certainly show up when the rental agency runs a check. I'm sure they would refuse to rent you a vehicle.

Worrying about these things is almost always worse than the fine itself. I'd pay it and be done with the matter.

I'm not an attorney.

There are a bunch of similar threads on FT. Search for them. I do not believe that traffic fines are shared between states, so I doubt you’d have problems anywhere but Utah. Even there you’ll probably be fine unless you are pulled over again. You won’t be arrested at the border. Was there never a reminder sent to your address? To be honest, I’d just pay the fine and be done with it.

When I was (wrongly) cited for speeding in Montana some twenty-five years ago, I made sure I went back there for my court hearing to fight it. It got thrown out by the judge in less than a minute who totally agreed with me that going Vmax on a totally deserted stretch of I-90 during perfect visibility and weather conditions in a new Audi S4 was indeed 'a rate of speed no greater than is reasonable and prudent'. Oh, the good old times... Seeing that overzealous officers' face when the judge lectured him on how Germans do this all the time on 'the autobahn' was well worth the inconvenience.

Since you missed your hearing and didn't pay, you now have a warrant. As others have mentioned, this warrant will not bear any consequences unless you return to the jurisdiction where the citation was issued and get stopped again.
However, I`d really rather pay the fine and get it done with unless you really cannot afford it.
This is no longer the good old paper-record times where these things tend to be forgotten after awhile. While you won't get arrested upon entry to the US, this could have other negative consequences you can't even oversee today. I`m sure that if the state has entered that warrant into any of the national crime databases you won't qualify for Global Entry, for example.

edit: As a foreign visitor with a foreign drivers' license, getting denied at car rentals will not happen. These checks are only an issue with US drivers' licenses.

There are better ways to argue this. But I believe you know the effectiveness on how you argued for yourself.

Based on a quick research, issuing a warrant is a SOP for Utah.

Really don't know. The problem is whether this warrant is shared elsewhere. I doubt that happens given the minority of the offense.

You can actually ask the court to vacate the warrant if you promise to pay the fine.

Thanks for your answers; The police man actually never wanted to see my passport, he only had my driver's licence which, however, still contains important information such as name and birthday; Therefore, they also never sent me a letter to my residence.

And actually in my letter to the judge I also wrote that first of all my cruising speed was measured incorrectly and that I did drive at "a rate of speed no greater than is reasonable and prudent." Especially considering the German highways I am using every day, I am quite confident that the cruising speed was safe;
But later I also found out that in the county (20x50 miles) there are just 5000 people living there so I do not want to wrongly accuse them but it seems like monetary aspects certainly played a big role in this case as well;

However, going to the court myself is something I did not do as I was just passing through and already had hotel and everything booked and the court only would have opened the next day and I would need to drive back a few hundred miles for that;

What is an SOP? And what does it mean? Is it possible that I will be rejected if I later apply for esta or a visa or I will be denied entry into the US?

I am currently working with a team to better forecase floodings in the greater Austin area and I might need to go to Austin for some time to meet up with my collaborators

But you are right I should probably write them and ask to pay for the original fine - even though that the speed was measured incorrectly;

OP - bhomburg was referring to Montana's old speed limit laws, where the speed limit was defined as "a rate of speed no greater than is reasonable and prudent." That only applied in Montana back at least 10 years ago, maybe more, Utah has numerical speed limits now, as does Montana, granted MT's current 80mph interstate speed limit is still fantastic.

Hm I just found a website saying:

Utah’s basic speed law and the presumed speed limit

Maximum speed limits in Utah are the direct statutory consequence of Utah’s Basic Speed Law which states:
A person may not operate a vehicle at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the existing conditions, giving regard to the actual and potential hazards then existing.
UT ST §41-6a-601(1)

What makes Utah’s maximum speed limits unique is that exceeding them results in merely a presumption, not a determination, of a violation of the Utah Basic Speed Law. Most other states have strict liability speed limits, whereby a ticket for speeding is based solely upon the prima facia (latin for at first face or appearance) evidence that you were physically exceeding the posted limit. This evidence is obtained by local or state police or county sheriff using radar or pacing.

In most states other than Utah merely exceeding the speed limit, albeit safely, reasonably and prudently, given the present road, weather and traffic conditions, cannot be raised as a valid defense in traffic court. In Utah this defense can be validly raised. In other words, even if you are caught exceeding the speed limit, Utah allows you to claim your innocence if you can present affirmative evidence that you did so safely and in conformance with the letter and spirit of the Basic Speed Law (which does not actually make any explicit reference to maximum speed limits).


But maybe the information is incorrect

You should come here...;)

Either way, it's not really negotiable with a judge, so your approach is a little misaligned to how it works here. We generally have to take care of these things here in court, which is obviously quite inaccessible to you.

So ultimately you're right - things work differently here than they do at home for you when it comes to statutory violations. Police in the US can be very strict about things you view to be trivial, especially in low population areas, as you noted.

Honestly, if I were you and planning to go back, and especially to Utah, as noted above I'd ask for the warrant to be vacated and pay the fine.

Viel glück!

OP's problem is that Utah has issued a warrant, not for speeding, but for failure to appear, contempt, or equivalent. This is no longer an argument about whether OP was speeding and how that ought to be enforced. It is simply a question of whether OP failed to appear or otherwise answer the charge. He did not.

OP says that it was a $150 fine and "probably" is now at $500. This suggests that he does not know. A starting point would be to call the court and determine what is owed and determine whether that is payable. If it is, pay it, make certain that the warrant is recalled and be done with it.

If the warrant has been entered, it will show both at CBP and should OP try to rent a vehicle in the US. Beyond unlikely that Utah would extradite from outside Utah but also possible that a rental agency would decline to rent or also possible that the underlying offense is entered wrong and it takes hours to get sorted at CBP. All a potentially unpleasant experience.

The bottom line is that OP chose to drive in Utah and was obligated to follow Utah law. That included appearing in court in person or through a lawyer. One can spend days debating law and morality. That is not what this is about. Practical answer is to pay this and move on.

I would not worry about being arrested upon entry but more about being deemed inadmissible, sent home, and told not to come back for seven years as at this point you knowingly have a criminal warrant in your name and could need to divulge that information to immigration. I have zero knowledge of what is being shared these days between local US law enforcement and immigration but Oootah is a very red state and the state attorney general Sean Reyes is suck up. As such, I would not be surprised if US immigration has slurped up this info.

Oh, I'll be driving through again in two weeks, on my way to the Idaho panhandle for a work relocation out of MN(finally!). Maybe I'll even get a $10 nodak speeding ticket on the way!

EDIT: And now i realize you mean Germany, not Montana.

If you can see your warrant online then certainly the CBP and a rental car company can. And the CBP will check: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/cbp-search-authority. They can hold you and contact the state to see if they want to extradite you to the state. If the answer is yes, then I would not want to be you. I doubt they would though, as Utah is unlikely to pay to send officers to pick you up and bring you back to the state so that you can appear for a speeding fine. Assuming the state does not want to extradite, it's not clear whether CBP will deny you entry to the US.

One question is whether they can clearly link you to the warrant. Does the warrant show your country, and either a DL number or passport number?

My own related anecdote: in 2018 I got a ticket for driving in a bus-only lane in Parma, Italy. I had no idea I had done that but they had a camera and I was apparently caught in the act. Hertz charged me their own processing fee for having to deal with the ticket but I was on my own for payng it. I never did, even though the city mailed notices to my house. In the fall of 2019 I again rented a car from Hertz in Italy (this time in Sicily) and had no problems.

You need to look at the direction of travel here. Whilst serious offences are increasingly dealt with in less serious ways, trivial offences are increasingly dealt with in more serious ways. Thinking of an unpaid speeding fine, and a warrant related to that, as trivial today, and of little consequence, doesn't mean that it will be trivial tomorrow when the computer dredges up the old offence. You don't want your return in 30 years time with grandchildren in tow to be ruined by this rearing its ugly face. The only sensible thing to do is to grit your teeth, pay the fine and stop worrying about it.

The other issue is that when a warrant is issued on a moving traffic violation, one's right to operate in the state of offense is suspended and many states reciprocate. Thus, it might even be that OP is admitted, but is stopped for some unrelated offense somewhere else and is then arrested because he his right to operate is suspended -- even though he may have a valid license. In that situation, he would be charged locally and not extradited to Utah, even if Utah were to offer to extradite.

Regardless of whether or not the ticket was justified, the question is whether it is worth a few hundred bucks to you not to have this worry.

I do many thousands of miles behind the wheel in many different countries and like most high mileage drivers, I pick up the odd speeding ticket here and there. Most - in fact probably all - of them are justified.

They are a minor irritation when I get them, but much less of an irritation than fighting uphill battles to get out of them. In most - if not all - cases it will cost you many times the fine to have it overturned, whether or not you really have been genuinely hosed.

Do yourself a favour and just pay it. It's just another road expense.

Standard operating procedure.

This is not wrong. It has something to do with your lack of legal knowledge.

There are 2 parts of the speeding law for the U.S. states utilizing the Basic Speed Law scheme - the Basic Speed Law and the absolute Maximum. While the Basic Speed law states that you can drive as fast as you want as soon as it is safe to do so, the absolute Maximum is when you must follow the speed limit on the sign. The absolute maximum is usually imposed in special areas, including highways, school zones, etc.

For example, it is legal to drive 45 mph in a 35 mph local road when the condition allows. However, it is considered speeding when you drive 56 mph in a 55 mph highway at all times.

Sets the cruise control to 9 mph over the posted limit and is surprised to be ticketed? Am I the only one surprised by that?

Not really. Lots of police in at least some rural areas in the US have had a practice of not ticketing people for speeding less than 10 miles over the speed limit on the high-speed county roads and state and US highways. I have had more than my fair share of hearing that sticking to 6-9 mph over the speed limit would commonly be tolerated by their departments/offices. Of course things aren’t necessarily uniform and static when it comes to this, but for one or more reasons the tolerance for speeding on the higher speed roads is greater than it is in say a 15-25mph zone near a school or hospital. In one place where I encounter a 15mph speed limit, 5 over has been a fine and a foreign licensed driver pulled into the station to pay the fine on the spot or face being held for a hearing. Go out ten minutes, and then going 8/9 mph over the speed limit gets a pass perhaps even from the very same LEO/LEA.

This.
In the US, to contest a traffic ticket you need to appear in court on your assigned court date, or hire a lawyer to do this for you. If you believe you are innocent because the officer didn't clock your speed correctly, you can request a trial. That may require going back there yet again.
Since you obviously missed your court date and didn't pay the fine, you now have that warrant issued against you - as Often1 correctly stated, your 'crime' isn't speeding but failure to appear in traffic court. The warrant is issued for this, not for the speeding ticket. It is too late to argue the speeding ticket now, you failing to appear in court has made that pretty much final.

This definitely does not pertain to foreign visitors to the US holding non-US drivers' licenses. As long as OP does not get stopped in Utah, everything's fine. The US chose not to ratify any treaty governing international driving relations following up to the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic which dates back to 1949 and only covers very basic things. Recognition of suspensions is not one of them.
Check the code of your state and the sanctions imposed on violations: There's a marked distinction between "driving while privilege to do so is suspended or revoked" and " Operating with foreign driver's license when privilege suspended or revoked by the state", with the latter incurring a much less severe penalties.

This is very much the case with state highway patrol officers, and has been MO for decades. However, with highway speed traps set up by small-town police preying on passing motorists out on a mission to raise revenue for their municipalities' depleted coffers chances of getting a ticket for > 10 over are definitely there.

__

During a brief period in the 1990s, Montana was unique in that it had no set daytime speed limit but a "reasonable and prudent" rule. All other states had set numerical limits, which were way lower than today's, too (most of the Northeast was still at 55...) . On a cross-country trip, I specifically took I-90 through Montana to take advantage of this newly-instituted freedom and enjoy some pedal-to-the-metal time in my fast-for-the-day car going through some really nice scenery with zero other traffic to watch out for.
The officer pulling me over strongly believed that going 150-plus mph (we're talking 1995 here, back when average cars weren't nearly as quick as they are today), was reckless, endangering and whatnot by itself in principle and no amount of arguing could convince him that this was indeed a perfectly safe speed to travel in given the long straight highway with perfect visibility and zero other vehicles on the road. I have forgotten if it was some local sheriff's office deputy or a state highway cop - probably the latter. He was also very unhappy about the long long time it took him to catch up with me and tried to include some more serious things like trying to elude him etc... This is not comparable to your case at all.

It's a sad fact of life that some US municipalities use speed traps on (interstate) highways passing through their boundaries as revenue sources. Most doing this actually depend on it for financial survival these days (you can read up on it). Some states even have laws against this practice.
Thanks to the internet (there's websites like speedtrap.org, phone apps like Waze etc...), these days, those operations can be detected and avoided even by unsuspecting visitors not familiar with the area with a little bit of research. I made sure I never exceeded the speed limit (or stopped for anything involving spending money) going through Maricopa county in AZ as long as Mr. Arpaio ran law enforcement there.

You now have three choices:
- do nothing and hope for everything to go away in time. This is only a good plan if you know 100% you a.) won't return to Utah in the next decade or two and b.) are not planning on any activity that requires any sort of background check by US authorities. Getting an ESTA issued and entering the US on it through an airport does not trigger thorough background checks at this time, but e.g. applying for Global Entry or a work permit and corresponding visa will. Also, one never knows where immigration policy in the US is heading. Rules may change pretty quickly following either a change in administration or as a fallout of events.

- pay the fine and court costs and be done. This is the easiest way out, and what everyone around here rightfully recommends.

- hire a lawyer and have him/her fight the charge. At this point, having missed the court date deadline, you will have to go through a lawyer who'll appeal to the court to do 'restitutio in integrum.' in lawyer-speak (arguing along the lines of no proper notification of your court date because the officer didn't note your address so the court could send you the summons or something like this....). This will prove to be way more expensive than simply paying the fine, but if you believe you were given that ticket in error and should be acquitted feel free to go down that avenue.

Welcome to FlyerTalk TobiasBB!

Take a look at this thread in the Practical Travel Safety/Security forum:

Aloha Tobias,

Looks like you have gotten lots of good advice already, but just wanted to add that you will probably find out right away about your entry eligibility once you apply for the ESTA visa with CBP... Im assuming that you are from Deutschland which is part of the Visa Waiver Program as provided by the Electronic System for Electronic Authorization (ESTA). Their website states that "The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) is administered by DHS and enables eligible citizens or nationals of designated countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without first obtaining a visa."

Depending on when your prior ESTA expires and when you have to re-apply, the warrant might come up, but this will at least be your first indication that you might have an issue when you arrive.

In the meantime, contact the court that issued the warrant/citation, find out the status of the warrant and make arrangements to pay and be done with it. Then when you arrive here in the US, bring copies of the emails/letters and proof and payment and just have it on hand for inspection by CBP.

When your in Austin, be sure and travel south to Fredicksburg, Texas, great small town about 2 hours South with lots of German heritage and a phenomenal Oktoberfest festival every year.

Prosit!