plead for probation, pay the fines and be done with it. No record if you stay clean for the next 6 months.

I have done that twice.

 

The correct way to go about things is to never admit guilt at the scene of the crime and to always plead "not guilty."

When the judge tries to scare you into reconsidering by saying that you'll probably lose in court, ignore the judge and plead not guilty. Request a trial by your peers.

This alone will often give you enough bargaining chips to settle for a lesser charge, because nobody wants to waste time in court for such a trivial thing as going 82 in a 65.

If you do go to court, hope the officer does not show up. If the officer does not show up, 99% of the time your case will be dismissed.

If the officer shows up, there are still ways to defeat a speeding ticket even if the officer caught you on radar. Traffic law attorneys know all about this.

 

CHP? well if you have a clean record just go to court and the judge might lower your fine.. if you have a bad record then just go and pay the fine. no reason to fight cause you cant win because the fact is that you were speeding.. speeding up to change lanes is not a valid excuse.

 

California is diff, officers get paid for going to court... and 99% the officer will show up, and 99.99% that you gonna lose if you plead "not guilty" it's just gonna be a waste of time.

 

If you plead not guilty, you still have the option for leniency (traffic school, etc.) even if you are found guilty.

Pleading "not guilty" and losing your case does not preclude the possibility of leniency. Anybody who tells you that is wrong.

Whether or not you want to shill out $ for a traffic attorney is up to you. For many people, it's not worth it. If you don't go this route, be sure you know what you're doing (know what questions to ask, know what you need to be prepared). There are a series of questions you can ask the officer regarding his radar/laser/memory of the incident.

That reminds me, once you plead not guilty and your court date approaches, call up the court and ask them to reschedule due to a work conflict.

Once the rescheduled court date approaches, call up again to reschedule. Keep putting off the court date as much as possible.

Why?

Say you put the court date off for months. It's possible that the officer might have been reassigned to another area or moved away, etc. A number of things could have happened that prevents him from going to court. Your case will be dismissed.

It is relatively easy to have a traffic ticket dismissed as long as you don't admit guilt at the scene.

 

i would love to fight if i had the chance. the law made to protect citizen, but law had changed. Don't you feel that sometime, law is always against you? what i want to said is that the law enforcement need to prove that you are guilty in court, but now is other way around, citizen need to prove themselves NOT Guilty. you could fight, protest.. in the end you still need to pay.

 

Thanks for all your input, so far not that much flaming. I guess by the looks of the responses i gotten, none of you ever won a speeding ticket?

 

That may be true, I'll take your word for it.

Nevertheless, there is still the possibility of having the case dismissed even if the officer shows up and had you caught on laser.

You have to ask questions like - when was the laser last calibrated, can the officer prove that the laser was accurate at the time of the alleged offense, so on and so forth.

I don't have all the questions off the top of my head, but I've been through this process before with a traffic attorney and I won my case even though I was caught excessively speeding by laser.

 

I was told by my judge that if any of us want to plead not guilty and take it to court we are welcome to but forfeit the chance for traffic school and a reduced fine. It's all or nothing at all.

By the way. I was going 80 in a 35.

 

i've actually never fought one. you can if you want and just hope the cop doesn't show up, but I've heard it's a pretty long and tiring process. if you have the time and really really don't want to do 8 hrs of traffic school, then go ahead and fight it.

 

Ok, that's slightly different. The judge, in that case, is offering to settle for a lesser fine right off the bat.

The fact that you even considered pleading not guilty was the bargaining chip, and you won in the form of being offered a lesser fine/traffic school.

If you are offered that right off the bat, take it.

 

If you are guilty you are guilty and I'm the type that will fess up to it. I plead no contest because I was guilty but not of the speed he wrote down.

And yes, I do feel that the laws were designed to protect the citizen. From people like me.

But I've learned my lesson. Ask the people I caravan with. They tease me for going so slow...

 

A co-worker of mine was was pulled over for speeding however she took it to court.

In this case she won and the ticket was dropped - the funny thing is how she won. She actually had a power point presentation to demonstrate to the judge to explain why she was not speeding!! Bascially she on the road with 3 intersections which were close to one another. Basically explained, she was started moving from a red light which turned green at the first intersection, how could of she been pulled over from the 3rd intersection for speeding since the intersections were close.

It actually worked lol!!

 

Yeah I don't speed these days either. The ticket I won was for me "allegedly" going 110 in a 55.

Before anybody calls me grossly negligent/irresponsible, know that officers routinely allow up to 70 because it's a flat wide stable freeway.

This was late at night with no cars around, it's not as though I was weaving in and out of traffic.

I personally think that maintaining a 2 second distance between the cars in front and behind you is far more important than speeding. If you are going faster, obviously the inter-car distance will increase in order to keep the time between the two cars at 2 seconds.

 

Thats pretty lucky, but after what Micaiah said about forfeiting traffic school if i say no guilty, I don't think i should argue unless i can argue b4 hand.