Saw this article on MSN Money.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/Insureyourcar/P51288.asp
Excerpts:
The best advice is simply not to speed, at least not brazenly. But if you get nailed, fight it -- because a $50 ticket can cost you thousands once your insurer gets wind of it.
* Don’t admit guilt. “The absolutely fatal question is, ‘Do you know why I stopped you?’” says attorney Mark Sutherland, co-author of the book “Traffic Ticket Defense.” Authorities can use any admission of guilt against you when you contest the ticket.
* Traffic school. Often your best alternative is to take a six- to eight-hour safety course for drivers. Policies vary by state, but often a minor speeding conviction can be wiped from your record and therefore go unseen by your employer or insurance company.
Simply asking for your day in traffic court can save you money. Count the ways:
* Showing up is half the battle. ...“A lot of times the courts will change the ticket for you, to encourage you not to go to court” -- sometimes reducing a moving violation to a lesser charge that your insurance company won’t penalize you for...
* Cop no-shows. ...defense attorneys say that in 20% to 25% of cases the ticket-writing officer won't. If the officer is required to show up (jurisdictions have different rules), no appearance usually means the ticket is thrown out. No-shows by police happen even more in summer, when even they take vacations.
* Errors matter (sometimes). While courts will often excuse minor errors on a ticket -- a misspelled name, a quibble over whether your Jag is ochre or orange -- if the officer cites the wrong statute on the ticket, or grossly misidentifies the highway or your make of car, you may to get your ticket dismissed, says Skrum. It’s often best to keep mum about the gaffe until you go to court, however, and reveal the mistake after the officer has recounted the wrong information.
* An 'A' for effort. If you do get all the way to a magistrate or traffic commissioner, any reasonable objection you have to the ticket is likely to at least reduce the amount of the fine, and perhaps change it to an infraction that won’t hurt your rates.
When Michael Pelletier, a 32-year-old computer systems engineer in the Bay Area, got a ticket a few years ago, he rented the nine-pound (!) legal defense kit from the National Motorists Association. (The rental cost of the packet, which is tailored to the requester’s state, is $50 per month, with a discount for NMA members.)
“The only thing I did was crank the legal crank,” says Pelletier. That meant asking for continuances and requesting records -- proof of when the officer’s radar gun was last calibrated and when the officer was trained in its use -- in hopes of finding a flaw in the authorities’ case, or simply wearing them down until they offered a deal.
A pre-emptive strike
Battling in court can be time-consuming and complicated. Pelletier estimates he invested nearly 50 hours in the year 2000 to fight his ticket, which he received driving his motorcycle 47 miles an hour in a 25 mph zone. He got it dismissed seven months later based on an esoteric legal definition of a “local street or road.”advertisement
..The free piece of advice they [lawyers] give, however, is the same: Confront your speeding ticket, even if it’s your first, and do your darnedest to make it disappear. After all, they add, you never know when you’ll get your next one, with higher premiums close behind.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/Insureyourcar/P51288.asp
Excerpts:
The best advice is simply not to speed, at least not brazenly. But if you get nailed, fight it -- because a $50 ticket can cost you thousands once your insurer gets wind of it.
* Don’t admit guilt. “The absolutely fatal question is, ‘Do you know why I stopped you?’” says attorney Mark Sutherland, co-author of the book “Traffic Ticket Defense.” Authorities can use any admission of guilt against you when you contest the ticket.
* Traffic school. Often your best alternative is to take a six- to eight-hour safety course for drivers. Policies vary by state, but often a minor speeding conviction can be wiped from your record and therefore go unseen by your employer or insurance company.
Simply asking for your day in traffic court can save you money. Count the ways:
* Showing up is half the battle. ...“A lot of times the courts will change the ticket for you, to encourage you not to go to court” -- sometimes reducing a moving violation to a lesser charge that your insurance company won’t penalize you for...
* Cop no-shows. ...defense attorneys say that in 20% to 25% of cases the ticket-writing officer won't. If the officer is required to show up (jurisdictions have different rules), no appearance usually means the ticket is thrown out. No-shows by police happen even more in summer, when even they take vacations.
* Errors matter (sometimes). While courts will often excuse minor errors on a ticket -- a misspelled name, a quibble over whether your Jag is ochre or orange -- if the officer cites the wrong statute on the ticket, or grossly misidentifies the highway or your make of car, you may to get your ticket dismissed, says Skrum. It’s often best to keep mum about the gaffe until you go to court, however, and reveal the mistake after the officer has recounted the wrong information.
* An 'A' for effort. If you do get all the way to a magistrate or traffic commissioner, any reasonable objection you have to the ticket is likely to at least reduce the amount of the fine, and perhaps change it to an infraction that won’t hurt your rates.
When Michael Pelletier, a 32-year-old computer systems engineer in the Bay Area, got a ticket a few years ago, he rented the nine-pound (!) legal defense kit from the National Motorists Association. (The rental cost of the packet, which is tailored to the requester’s state, is $50 per month, with a discount for NMA members.)
“The only thing I did was crank the legal crank,” says Pelletier. That meant asking for continuances and requesting records -- proof of when the officer’s radar gun was last calibrated and when the officer was trained in its use -- in hopes of finding a flaw in the authorities’ case, or simply wearing them down until they offered a deal.
A pre-emptive strike
Battling in court can be time-consuming and complicated. Pelletier estimates he invested nearly 50 hours in the year 2000 to fight his ticket, which he received driving his motorcycle 47 miles an hour in a 25 mph zone. He got it dismissed seven months later based on an esoteric legal definition of a “local street or road.”advertisement
..The free piece of advice they [lawyers] give, however, is the same: Confront your speeding ticket, even if it’s your first, and do your darnedest to make it disappear. After all, they add, you never know when you’ll get your next one, with higher premiums close behind.