Traffic tickets may seem minor, but even minor violations can result in higher insurance rates and points on your license. Furthermore, certain violations could even lead to criminal charges, which could compromise your prospects. The Interesting Info about traffic tickets.
Once a judge calls your case, both the ticketing officer and driver must appear. While many police officers often don’t show up to traffic court hearings, most do.
Speeding
Driving safely requires keeping within the speed limit, not only to ensure your safety but also to avoid traffic tickets and motor vehicle violations, such as speeding tickets—with their potentially hefty fines and surcharges—reckless driving, failure to signal, and other offenses that could incur tickets.
When charged with speeding, your options include paying the fine and accepting points against your record or fighting it in court. An experienced traffic attorney can help you assess which of these will best fit your circumstances, keeping your record clear while also helping prevent an increase in insurance rates.
Many individuals opt to fight a ticket if they believe the police have made false accusations against them. For instance, if an accident involves another driver speeding and you both were speeding, they may assume you contributed to it by speeding too – this assumption would be incorrect as accidents have multiple causes, such as road conditions and uncontrollable circumstances that contributed to it.
An additional defense to speeding tickets involves showing that weather or road conditions made driving unsafe at your alleged speed. One way you could prove this would be by returning to the scene and taking photos of your speedometer at the time of the incident; these can show that you were actually traveling below the limit.
Reckless Driving
An offense for reckless driving carries greater weight than careless driving tickets, potentially resulting in costly fines, jail time, license suspension, and an increase in auto insurance premiums. For the prosecution to charge someone with reckless driving, they must demonstrate that they drove with an intention to endanger others or disregard for safety while operating their vehicle.
To show that you had no regard for other people’s safety, prosecutors and judges (in cases where pink summonses are issued to appear in court) must present evidence that your actions put others at significant risk of injury while behind the wheel. These may include rolling through stop signs with pedestrians present; swerving into oncoming traffic without yielding; crossing lanes without yielding; speeding past other vehicles while speeding across medians without yielding; speeding to and speeding across medians without yielding; or speeding towards and driving across medians together with other cars – all these actions put people at significant risk of being hit while behind the wheel – while engaging in actions which put others at substantial risk of injury.
As reckless driving is a criminal offense, its presence will appear on your record and any background checks conducted by employers or potential business partners. A lawyer who can mount an effective defense on your behalf—for example, by showing that no multiple incidents were committed simultaneously—could help get the charge dismissed or reduced substantially.
Texting or Cell Phone Use
Texting or using your cell phone while driving can result in traffic tickets that cost money and points on your license, increasing insurance rates and premiums. A skilled lawyer can help you fight this type of ticket and reduce the penalties associated with it.
New York law does not permit drivers to use their cell phones while driving; they are only allowed to do so while stopped at red lights or stop signs. This makes it difficult to text or answer calls in traffic. A skilled attorney may make a convincing argument on your behalf that you were not using your phone at the time of any violation.
Depending on the jurisdiction, there may be other valid grounds to dispute a cell phone or texting ticket. For instance, an officer could have illegally pulled you over without probable cause, breaching your constitutional rights. Sometimes, working with an experienced lawyer will allow reducing this type of violation into non-moving violations, such as disobeying traffic control devices, which will save hundreds in fines and surcharges.
Although its effects cannot always be quantified directly, traffic tickets have the power to influence behavioral changes that result in safer streets. That is why Cheektowaga prioritizes traffic enforcement, education, and community involvement in fighting distracted driving.
Failure to Stop at a Stop Sign
Drivers looking to avoid traffic tickets for failure to stop at a stop sign should ensure they come to a complete stop before proceeding into an intersection, providing pedestrians and vehicles already present the right-of-way and yielding to any pedestrians in their way. Any failure on their part which causes an accident could incur civil liabilities against them.
Drivers may use various strategies to contest a traffic ticket for failure to stop at a stop sign, including challenging an officer’s testimony. Since police officers often act as the sole witness in such cases, discrediting their accounts may make it easier for prosecutors to establish that someone intentionally broke the law.
Drivers may attempt to show that the stop sign wasn’t clearly visible by requesting copies of an officer’s notes to learn where he/she was standing at the time of the alleged violation. If those notes indicate that the sign had been knocked over or obscured by trees or another object, this may provide strong grounds for having the charge dismissed.
Though a stop sign violation may seem innocuous at first, even one offense can increase your insurance rates and add points to your driving record – leading to license suspension in time. Therefore, it’s wiser to fight the charges than pay and move on without taking steps against them.
Read also: New Jersey Pornography Laws