Re: Advice (archive)

In order to get to the point where you can question an officer for certificates you must have already gone to court at least once. In my experience a judge is usually only lenient at the first hearing, where you would enter a plea. He is trying to get you to plead guilty by lowering the fine and offering traffic school in an attempt to lower his case log. In CA you can go to Traffic School once every 18 months. When completed there is no trace of the ticket for insurance to see.

If you do go to trial, I have found Judges to be very strict with persons who try to get out tickets using loopholes. In most cases the officer will have this info and it will seal your doom. Remember that lowering a fine or awarding traffic school is up to the judge. If he senses that you may be trying to skirt the system, he may make an example of you.

This is just my experience. I have had 4 tickets in my life and have fought two. I won one and lost one. The ticker that I won was thrown out at the initial hearing. Going to trial also requires you to take more time off of work since you have to go twice to get to an actual trial.

My advice is:

1. Take driving school for a day if it gets rid out your ticket.

2. Plead "Not Guilty" to any moving violation. As the other posts state, they usually drop the charge down.

3. DON'T EVER PLEAD GUILTY.

4. Ask for spedo calibration certs for the officers vehicle. I'm sure this is a state by state thing, but in VA, an officer must have 3 things that expire every 6 months. A spedo cert, a radar gun cert, and a tuning fork cert. If they don't have them, then the judge usually dismisses (beware the officer could ask for a continuance so the officer can get it). If they are expired, then the judge will dismiss.

Good luck..

Ox///M

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