Police arrest woman driving 41 mph in 40 mph zone

TikToker Ashton Anderson (@ashtonhanderson) uploaded a viral clip detailing the confusion she experienced during a traffic stop where a police officer informed her he was giving her a ticket for speeding just one mile over the speed limit.

“I was driving, I was going the speed limit, and I saw a cop doing speed camera,” Ashton says at the beginning of her video. She says she “didn’t pay attention” to it at first, until she “stopped at a red light.”

Two other cars were behind her at the light, and she could see the police lights flashing and hear the sirens going off.

She immediately thought the officer was stopping one of the other cars behind her, but it soon became apparent that the officer was actually sounding the alarm for her.

“I had the windows up, the radio on, and all of a sudden I hear over the speaker, ‘White GMC Terrain, white GMC Terrain,’ that’s the car I’m driving, and he was yelling.”

Unsure of what she could have done to deserve such an impassioned response from the officer, “I rolled down my window and looked out the window behind me and I was like, ‘Yeah?’ He said, ‘Pull over! Pull over,’ so I said, ‘OK.'”

She expresses frustration at the exchange, stating that she could not move her car at that moment because the light was red.

Ashton admits she was texting and says she thinks that’s probably why she was eventually arrested:

“So we have to wait for the light to turn green, whatever. I pull into the next parking lot, he gets out and comes back to my car. I’m like, Okay, I was texting, so he probably… that’s why I’m being pulled over.”

However, after the officer approached her vehicle and began speaking to her, she realized he had been stopped for an entirely different reason: “He said, ‘You were speeding.’ I said, ‘Is that true?’ He said yes.”

Genuinely confused by what the officer said, Ashton responds incredulously by asking, “I was driving?” to which the officer informs her that she was indeed driving 41 miles per hour in a 40 mile per hour zone.

She added that she lives in Memphis, Tennessee, calling it “one of the most dangerous cities in the world.”

She thinks the officer could have used his time better than arresting her for going just one kilometre over the speed limit: “This officer pulled me over at 6pm on a Tuesday, put his loudspeaker on me, yelled at me, pointed at me, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ for speeding. I mean, I have the ticket right here,” she says, holding it up to the camera.

She holds up the ticket to indicate that she was actually pulled over for going a mile over the speed limit. “But you can see there, 41 in a 40. I’m flabbergasted. Like you just gave me the ticket, OK, I’ll take the ticket, but you’re yelling at me, yelling at me on the loudspeaker and pointing at me to pull over, like I’m running, I’m sitting still, I’m at a red light, I’m not moving,” she says.

The TikToker continued, “I’m… what?” before the video finally cut off.

If Ashton wanted to contest the ticket, based on the information presented on this attorney’s website, then there would be a good chance she could present a fairly strong case.

She could ask to see if the radar was correctly calibrated and claim that it is possible that she was respecting the legal maximum speed limit.

This was a suggestion that several TikTok users made to Ashton so she could potentially avoid having to pay the fine associated with her ticket.

Others reported being in situations where they successfully contested speeding tickets they received from officers who had ticketed them for speeding close to the legal limit.

As one person noted, “This happened to me years ago. I was 38 going on 35 and the judge not only yelled at and embarrassed the officer, he made him apologize in front of everyone.”

Another app user seemed shocked that the officer pulled her over simply because she was a mile over the speed limit: “Most places won’t even stop you if you’re five miles over.”

According to another user, judges don’t take kindly to cops who do this. “This happened to someone I know in Virginia,” he said. “I went to court, the judge yelled at the cop for wasting his time.”

What is the lowest speed you have been stopped and fined for while driving?