A lot of things will cross your mind once you’ve been issued a traffic ticket. You may ask the following questions:
- Should I just pay the ticket and forget it?
- Is there a way to wipe this ticket off my record?
- If I pay the ticket, will my insurance rates go up?
- Do I have legal grounds to fight the ticket?
- Can I lose my license?
There are only two options you can choose either to fight your ticket or just let it be. When you fight your ticket, surely you will spend a lot of your time worrying on how to get on with court proceedings. You have to allocate your time on going back and forth for the trial of your case. You also worry if you could make a good presentation in court. And it needs money to hire someone who is good enough to defend your case. But if you don’t fight your ticket still you would be spending a lot of money and time in traffic school. You will be paying fines for the ticket and it would reflect in your driving record. And if you have several traffic violations before the worst is that you will lose your driving privileges.
Everyone must be knowledgeable in law. Once you have a traffic ticket on you, you must focus yourself if you really committed such violations. Check yourself if the officer really issued the correct ticket by researching on internet. By this you would be able to test the legality of the ticket you received. There are several ways on how to fight traffic tickets. Below are ways on how to help defend yourself on traffic violations.
Five ways on how to fight traffic tickets:
1. Challenge the Officer’s Subjective Conclusion
In most cases it is better to ask the officers on his view regarding the issuance of the ticket. We should ask him the reason why he issued such a traffic ticket. For instance we should take the situation of the traffic on the highways into consideration in which the officer had the issue. We would also see how the cop issued such ticket when he is not accurately on the location to see what has really happened.
2. Challenge the Officer’s Observations
During the argumentation the judge usually believes the police. So to defend ourselves against police we must have a witness to testify our claims.
Photos that show intersections, stop signs and road conditions or other evidence to back up your case.
3. You must prove them that Your action Was a “Mistake of Fact”
If you can show that you made an honest and reasonable error, a judge might find you made a “mistake of fact,” meaning your ticket should be dismissed. For instance you fail to stop in a pedestrian lane due to faded paint or you fail to stop in a stop sign because it was covered with broken branches of trees by the strong storm.
4. Prove your action was “Legally Justified”
For example, if you were charged with driving too slowly in the left lane, it is a legal defense in all states that you had to slow down to make a lawful left turn. In this situation you do not have to deny that you were driving significantly below the speed limit and causing vehicles behind you to slow down.
5. Prove your action was necessary to avoid harm.
There are instances when we have to think for our safety and for others safety as well. For example you have to speed up in order to avoid an uncontrolled truck.
You can find more details in these articles:
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/beat-ticket-book/chapter1-1.html Should You Fight Your Traffic Ticket?
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fighting-traffic-ticket-strategies-30091.html Five Strategies for Fighting a Traffic Ticket
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