Speeding tickets: Fight them or pay them?

Cop's word is God's word in this situation. There is an urban legend that Cops don't show in c ourt for these things, but that's generally untrue (My dad was a cop). They get OT pay for that stuff, and they def take it.

Is there a way to pay the fine but not incur points (for insurance)? I really do not want a speeding ticket on my record...

don't tell me you don't want that ticket because it may pop up during ur background check

My roommate is pre-law has gotten out of three tickets by challenging in court. Might as well give it a shot.

tradinganalyst,

Do you know how your roommate was able to challenge the tickets? I plan on visiting legal services on campus to discuss this.

I've gotten out of countless tickets....Heres the game plan...

You find a lawyer whose does traffic cases, he already has ties with the ada or da.

He calls up the da tells them blah blah blah your a good person blah and he gets it reduced to a non traffic violation at worst which is 1pt here in ny. Then instead of paying the 190 for the ticket your paying the lawyer about that and a few extra dollars for the non traffic violation.

You can always plead not guilty and hope the cop isn't there and see what happens but this isn't reliable.

Good luck hope this helps a bit. Make a few calls to some lawyers and you should be alright.

The_CEO,

Thanks so much for the tip. I'm planning on going to the Legal Services office here at my school and seeing what they can do. Hope they can do something.

In my experience (two tickets) I have gone in on the court date and usually you can sit down with the DA or whoever before you actually go in front of the judge and make some kind of deal. Explain you have never been pulled over before, you don't think you were going that fast because other cars were passing you, but you will be really careful and pay the fine but you are just concerned about the points really killing your insurance. Usually they will let you plead down to like unsafe driving or something like that which may be a slightly higher fine, but no points. I had this experience in NJ and CT.

NEVER lose your BlackBerry www.conveniencesoftware.com

I have gotten about 3 speeding tickets (going between 80-85) in a 65mph zone. out of the 3 tickets I have been dismissed for 2 tickets.

This is what i have done. right before your appearance date, call the court and ask for an extension. they will grant you a 30 day extension. After your 30 day extension you show up and plea not guilty. The judge is going to give you a trial date, which is normally 30-60 days from your court appearance. Right before the trial date you write to the judge and ask for another extension, bc of...(make up an excuse: work, school, etc). The judge will normally give you a two month extension. At this point you have already dragged on your trial appearance for over 5 months. When your actual trial comes, show up. Usually, because its been such a long time, the officer doesn't show up. If he does happen to show up, just ask the judge for a reduction in your fee and for traffic school, which should not impact your insurance. Another thing you could do is try to schedule your trial close to a major holiday.

This normally works for me. Hope this helps. feel free to pm me.

and it is also possible to beat a ticket on the merits. I got a ticket for 50 in a 30 once, but I hadn't seen any signs marking the zone as a 30, so I went back and talked to the guys at the town garage who told me that the speed sign in that area had been vandalized the week I got my ticket. Challenging the accuracy of the radar though is probably going to be difficult on your own, you'll have to get a lawyer and his fee will likely be more than 190

1. fight the shit in court.

2. fighting in court will prevent getting points on the license, but costs nearly 2x or 3x as much.

3. cops are douchebags who couldn't get a fucking real education, and want to annoy the fuck out of others. (there are exceptions to those who got in the job to really help out, but I doubt there are many)

If the cop doesn't show up at court, you win. Might as well take a shot.

PLZ KEEP IN MIND that if you get 3 speeding tickets within 1 year in Mass, your license will be suspended for a month. I'd definitely fight it if I were you.

jesus.... who cares, pay the damn fine and slow down

I have a lawyer that does nothing but fix tickets for me. This is definitely the way to go. You'll end up paying the attorney close to what the fine cost, but it's worth it to save the insurance costs and keep the money out of the filthy hands of the courts.

A funny story if you have the time:

I once got a speeding ticket for doing 60 in a 25 zone. The road I was on was just about to go into a hairpin turn (90 degrees), so I would have had to slow down anyway. So the cop pulls me over and reads me the riot act and gives me a ticket for 60 in a 25 - not cheap. He's got me on radar, so he thinks he's the cat's ass or something. I lose my cool and explain to him that if he had any worth in society, he'd be in a hurry to get somewhere too, and wouldn't be spending his time fucking with people far more important than himself. This only further enrages him.

I decide I'm going to fight the ticket. Naturally, I'm hoping the cop doesn't show up for the court date and it just gets dismissed, but no luck. He's there bigger than shit. So I plead not guilty and they give me a court date about a month out.

So I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna get out of it, and I go grab some breakfast on the same road I got busted on. As I'm eating, I see a train come blasting by and it hits me: the road I got busted on runs parallel to the train tracks, and the road and the tracks are only about 5 feet from each other.

I show up to my court date and, sure enough, the douchebag cop is there with a shit-eating grin on his face. Only he doesn't know that I've come armed with a train schedule and a report on how cops' radar guns work.

The judge asks me to present my case and I start by just stating that the road I was on was about to go into a hairpin turn, so why would I be doing 60 on it? The judge agrees it's a good point, but the cop has me dead to rights on radar. That's when I break out the schedule that shows a train left the nearest station within ten minutes of the incident. I see the cop start to fidget. Then I show the judge the report I found that showed that radar guns have a natural tendency to pick up the largest object in their field of vision. Certainly a speeding train is a larger object than my sports car, your honor, and moves a hell of a lot faster. Just about 60 mph, I'd say.

The cop is livid because he can't prove that there wasn't a train going by at the moment (there wasn't). The case got dismissed, and the cop made a point to stick around and have a "chat" with me after court. He basically told me he was going to make it his mission in life to fuck me up. I laughed at him and told him to do his worst. (But you can bet my eyes were glued to the rear view mirror when I drove off.)

Needless to say, I never heard from him again. Just another idle threat from a loser in a position of questionable authority.

Beating a speeding ticket is your moral obligation, kid. It is an excellent way to marginalize traffic cops and force them to question their worth as they plunge deeper into alcoholism.

Great suggestions by everyone.

I plan on fighting the ticket because 1) I don't want higher points on my insurance and because 2) I do not believe it is my fault, considering there were many cars around me going as fast, or ever faster, than I was going.

I hope this ticket gets dismissed, if not, at least dropped to a non-traffic violation.

gomi just to let you know, i hope you arent planning on using argument (2) in court because that will not fly and you'll basically incriminate yourself. if you show up and bargain, they may knock it down to a 70 in a 65 or a nonmoving violation if you plead guilty. if you fight it and lose, you'll suffer the full extent of the consequences so get a lawyer or get a better gameplan than that

b4f,

I was only elaborating on the situation; I do not plan on using that argument in my case. I've spoken to the legal services department on my campus, and I hope they can do something about this.

Don't use a lawyer, because you are not saving any money if you are paying your lawyer $300, your insurance will not go up that much and it is erased from your record after like three years.

Just google "how to fight a speeding ticket" and you will find plenty strategies to use.

Lawyers are for lazy people. Prepare and fight the ticket yourself, it will be a lot of fun.

I had one friend that went to court and just talked to the prosecutor for a non-moving or something, and a fine. He went to pay the fine and the girl screwed up what he owed and he only paid 60 bucks, no other worries.

Finally, driving fast is fun, but I doubt you have a 911 or a new m3 to make it worth it, so save yourself the fine and wasted time and slow down - do you really have to drive 20-over all the time in traffic if it results in you coming on the internet to complain about it and trying to get out of it?

I will say that growing up in a small town lets you have all the fun you want driving fast on back roads though.

i was reading through these posts with interest for the past 2 months , because I was awaiting a court date for my plea of not guilty for a speed ticket and an additional fine for not obeying the officer - a total of $357. I was ready to defend my self and did not engage any lawyer.

I got a note yesterday from the court saying that they have entered a Nolle Prosequi in my case and the case is disposed!!!! Thank God! I looked up Nolle Prosequi . It is a latin term and means "unwilling to pursue". looks like many speed tickets are disposed as Nolle Prosequi. As many have said in this post : Plead not guilty - at least the fine will be reduced.

The worst that happens is you pay the fine in court. But you've also cost them about $150 in court costs (estimated cost per arraignment per defendant). A full-blown traffic court trial will cost the state more than the face value of the ticket. I'd say it's worth taking a few hours of legal research and fighting the ticket in court.

Best case, the prosecutor cuts you a deal at half off face value or the cop ftas and the ticket gets dismissed. Oh, and good idea on asking for continuances as long as you possibly can until the prosecutor doesn't want to deal with you anymore. It's worth doing it if you know what you're doing.

Great advice:

LOL He has a lot of good points.

This only works in NY State and for traffic violations

1) Ignore ticket 2) After 9-12 months you will get a letter in the mail warning you of suspension, they give you 2 months to act 3) Wait till 2 weeks before suspension date and plea not guilty by mail 4) You will get a 3 month extension and have to write the ADA 5) Write the ADA and ask for a reduction 6) A couple weeks before court call them up and ask the secretary for a 3 month extension (they will usually give it to you) 7) 1.5 years into this finally show up to court with your reduction and plea guilty

Always, ALWAYS fight a ticket. They are nothing but a tax to fund little towns and counties. Almost always you can do this by mail. The speed limit (on interstates and thruways) was put in place to conserve gas in the 70's, it has nothing to do with safety. Most radar guns are not calibrated either. When you are pulled over say almost nothing and never admit to anything. State Troopers will cite what you say in their computers and a little ticket will print out with your admission on it.

If everyone fought their tickets they would stop being given out.

Oh, most of the time you don't even have to show up to court. I do everything by mail. I have fought probably 8-10 tickets in my life and went to court only for the 1st one.

got a traffic ticket next to central park one day. Apparently the parking meter stub was upside down. However, I had paid and brought evidence to the court, ready to fight. The case was dismissed because they got the make of the car wrong.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the defensive driving option. Most states let you take some online course which dismisses the ticket and normally gets you an insurance discount to boot. This only works if you haven't had a ticket within a given timespan, normally a year.

I'm not one to re-hash old threads (or to post much of anything really) but here is some good information for everyone, if you have an NYS driver license you can just pay any out of state moving violations and forget about them. NYS never signed the interstate driver license compact (I believe that is what the agreement was called) as such, NYS DMV throws out all out of state requests to add moving violations to your driver license abstract.

AKA, it never happened. Your insurance company doesn't check records everywhere. It only checks your home state. Thus, you are fine as far as your insurance premiums and your license points. However, they will count in the state of offense. I.E., if you drive from NY to CT often and get banged out with enough moving violations in CT to cause a suspension, your NYS driver license will no longer be valid for use in CT despite having 0 NY points. So, you can just pay and forget the occasional 3 point speeding ticket but this is not a get out of jail free card.

NYS as a matter of public policy will allow out of state DUI's and failures to pay tickets to appear on your abstract. Also, all other states to my knowledge did sign on so this is a NY specific thing.

Finally, NY signed a reciprocity deal with some Canadian provinces so watch out up there.

Drive safe.

This is an old thread, but ill put in a tidbit of advice for others possibly reading this in the future. Many states have what is known as delayed judification. It means that you plead no contest, pay the fine and if you don't get busted again for a moving violation with in X number of days your record is expunged of the violation and you go on your merry way. It just so happens that most of these are set up in a way that seals your documents from the records until the date of expungement. A side note on this, many cities will require you to take defensive driving. Which by the way you can send into your insurance company and lower your rates while also fulfilling requirements for the court. Its a pain in the ass to do but it a nice little break for a few hours worth of listening to someone drone on about using your turn signals.

Just dress respectfully, be humble, show up, tell the judge you fucked up and ask for traffic school. Good chance you get it. Also just drive legally going forward.