Traffic Tickets: Deciding Whether to Fight or Pay Up
Evaluate your chances of winning before you go to traffic court.
There are two kinds of traffic tickets: Ones you can beat and ones you can't. The problem is determining which kind you got. If it's your first ticket in ten years and you expect it will be another decade before you get another one, you may want to avoid this whole question, pay the fine, and move on. Or you may want to consider going to traffic school, which takes a day of your time but keeps you record clear. If you can't attend traffic school -- or choose not to -- you need to evaluate whether you have a winner or a loser, so you can develop the proper strategy to fight it in court.
Study the Law You Are Charged Under
Believe it or not, cops sometimes don't know the exact wording of the law, and it is the exact wording of the law that is most important to you if you are going to fight your ticket. And many laws are often so convoluted that it's not uncommon to find, upon careful reading, that what you did was not, technically speaking, a violation of the exact words of the statute.
When trying to fight a ticket, ask yourself the question: "What are the elements (parts) of the offense I am charged with committing?"
For example, in most states, the law making U-turns illegal reads like this:
No person in a residential district shall make a U-turn when any other vehicle is approaching from either direction within 200 feet, except at an intersection when the approaching vehicle is controlled by an official traffic control device.
You should break this law down into its legal elements by drawing a line between each clause, like this:
No person in a residential district / shall make a U-turn / when any other vehicle is approaching from either direction within 200 feet / except at an intersection / when the approaching vehicle / is controlled / by an official traffic control device.
|
