Nobody likes getting tickets for speeding. They are annoying. They consume a lot of time. They hurt your wallet when you have to pay the fine and if/when you have to pay higher insurance premiums. And you’ve heard they can be beat. And a Google search for how to beat a speeding ticket returns millions of results. So how is it done? Simply put, most people hire a traffic ticket attorney to help them.
But what do speeding ticket attorneys do that a normal older person can’t? Aren’t speeding tickets the bottom of the barrel when it comes to lawyers? And isn’t any lawyer who works on speeding tickets a bad lawyer? It seems that if they had any ability, they would be doing something a little more risky.
The short answer is that traffic lawyers are usually very good lawyers and take their craft seriously. As in any industry, there are some good guys and some bad guys, some who work hard and enjoy winning cases, and others who are more concerned with collecting fees. But in the end, having an attorney on your side to fight your speeding ticket can make a big difference in the outcome of your case, which usually ends up being a dismissal or a determination that no violation occurred. So how do they do it? Short answer: They advocate like the guys who are in multi-million dollar lawsuits and murder trials.
Most speeding ticket attorneys I know work a case from top to bottom looking at the following three issues: (1) procedural violations; (2) radar maintenance and requirement violations; and (3) substantive violations. Each presents its own opportunities for dismissal or declaration of non-commitment. And the reason they are done in this order is that violations in the first category are easier to find and completely destroy the legitimacy of the ticket. When you enter category three, one begins to enter a gray area that may or may not result in a non-compromising finding.
Procedural violations, just as they sound, are about the police, the prosecutor and the courts following the rules that they must follow in traffic violation cases. Although these are easy for a speeding ticket attorney to verify, to most people (ie the untrained eye), these would never be spotted. And I could try to list all of these, but it would take too long and probably be quite difficult to understand. However, if you find a procedural violation, the result is a full dismissal of the ticket.
Radar maintenance records and maintenance requirements are the second avenue a traffic ticket attorney typically follows to get a speeding ticket dismissed. Because radar is often the method of catching the majority of speeding drivers, evidence of the radar used must be brought into evidence for the radar reading to be admitted into evidence. And because radar is a scientific machine that uses scientific information, specific things must be presented to the court so that it can be satisfied that the machine did what it was supposed to do and was doing what it was supposed to do. that particular day. Like the procedural violations, a violation here results in the case being dismissed (although here it is because the evidence is excluded from the hearing).
And finally, if tracks one or two don’t work, track three is to determine if there is enough evidence present to allow the court to find that a violation has been committed. What this usually means is checking the officers’ report for any errors or omissions that make the ticket unenforceable. Again, this goes back to the lawyers: making sure they can make the case against their client stick. And you can often find something here to at least make a convincing argument.
In the end, speeding tickets are something that can be overcome. And while it is possible to do it on your own, the skill and experience that an attorney brings greatly increases the likelihood of victory on their part. So the next time you receive a traffic ticket, consider hiring a speeding ticket attorney. It could mean the difference between winning and losing.