Legal Question in Traffic Law in Illinois

do citations have to be signed?

i was recently coming back to my home state and had to go thru another state, Illinois, and was speeding and was pulled over. upon coming to my window the officer said he smelled beer and found 3 open containers in the vehicle, one with beer in it. i recieved 2 citations 1 for the speeding, and 1 for the open containers. he didnt give me any type of test to check for alcohol in me and even said i was not drunk but wrote the citations. when it was all over and he left i noticed he didnt have me sign the 1 citation for the open containers, but i did sign the one for the speeding. now, i have to drive 8 hours back to that county court to go to court for this reason. does the ''not having signed'' the citation make it not admissable in court? otherwise, couldnt an officer just sit and write a bunch of tickets after one leaves the scene? how should this matter be approched? i just dont want to have to take a day off for speeding and having trash in my vehicle.


Asked on 10/01/01, 7:45 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael R. Nack Michael R. Nack, Attorney at Law

Re: do citations have to be signed?

It does not matter if the officer signed the ticket(s), or if you signed the ticket(s). It seems to me that you were lucky not to have gotten into worse trouble than this. Why would you be speeding through a neighboring state with beer cans in your vehicle? Wouldn't it have made common sense to discard the beer cans before driving?

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Answered on 11/08/01, 11:44 pm


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