When you’ve determined to struggle that traffic quotation, you wish to put your most effective lawful defense you can. In most traffic courts there is only one chance that you get to change the opinion of a judge to dismiss your citation. Make sure your argument is solid and backed up by the right evidence.
Of course, I hear drivers cited by police officers for unsafe driving, notably unsafe turns or lane changes. Often, these citations necessitate the officer to lay down their opinion and arrive at an impartial conclusion. If the officer had to use personal judgment on getting you your ticket, you have the ability to challenge the judgment.
For example, you may be given a citation for an unsafe lane change on the highway by the police. Arguably, under the given weather and traffic conditions, you can always argue that your lane change was safe. Finally, you can support your argument further by mentioning that when were about to change lanes, the officer was ahead of you. When there is heavy traffic, you observe that an officer in front of you gave more attention to the road than he should have given to a car which is changing lanes behind.
There exist some types of tickets in which the motorists cannot challenge the judgment of the officer. The tickets are for running a stop sign or making an illegal U-turn, these are clear cut infraction. Challenging a ticket means testing the officer specifically on if they actually witnessed you do the ticketed action. You will have a high burden to overcome here. There are arguments and evidence that may be made to call into question what the officer observed.
In some of the ticket situations, such as driving the wrong way on an empty one‐way street, you can offer evidence that you made a standing ‘mistake of fact‘ and if you present that kind of proof, you may not be liable for the violation because you made a mistake of fact. A mistake of fact is a mistake made by a driver, about a situation that was not the control of a driver. Mistakes of fact can also consist of a driver who honestly and reasonably believes that he or she is complying with the law. This doesn’t imply that you can say that you had no knowledge of the law.
Another mistake of fact might be that you may have been driving in two lanes because you couldn’t see where the lane markers were due to the fact that they were so worn down. There have always been examples like driving the wrong way down a one way because the sign was recently defaced with graffiti and no other cars were on the road.
For this particular strategy, you deny nor indicate at any mistakes in the ticketing process. However, you instead now say the driving was unlawful but you give information demonstrating that the unlawful driving was justified. This is a good way of fighting a ticket as you don’t have to dispute the Officer’s statement or charge. However, you demonstrate works that must contribute to the driving. As an example, if you received a speeding ticket on the highway, you may have verification that you were passing a possibly drunk driver. The vehicle was drifting across lanes and driving otherwise erratically. But in this situation, you were more or less keeping yourself safe, avoiding an accident.
This follows above defense in that you suggest your ticketed driving was essential to avoid speedily injury to yourself or others. For example, avoid hitting a pedestrian who has fallen from a sidewalk into your driving lane. This defense can also be used if an evasive action preventing a collision was performed. Essentially the key here is to show a judge that if you would’ve not driven the way you did then someone could have gotten serious injured. However, if you were dialing your cell phone because you just witnessed an accident while driving, you could use this defense. Traffic court is more likely to hear your case if you still got a ticket when you told the police officer.