TAking a break from Lent to come back to the BBS. My wife was involved in a traffic accident on 610W at the 59 interchange. Traffic conditions were normal, (she's not from Houston, doesn't live there, probably never will), she sees that she needs to get over a lane, checks her blindspot, and when she turns back around traffic has completely stopped (this was the 4th accident that day); she tries to change lanes to avoid a collission when she the car's back tires lose grip, causing her to go back into the lane where she was trying to avoid collision. Now, the officer (and I flew down to hear this part) stated that he was not going to give her a citation but that for the record he had to list her as the party causing the crash. She was not speeding, but he said she "failed to control her speed" and "did an unsafe lane change". Fast forward two weeks, we get a photo copy of a ticket by Bellaire police, stating she had a court date. At first we thought nothing of it because she had been promised no ticket. She called to make sure and the officer said because someone in the accident had to go to the hospital that he had to cite her. Soooo...that leads me to my next point, she's upset because she feels there was no law she was breaking and nothing that would warrant her doing anything differently as far as driving. My brother in law told her to apply for deferred adjudication, which would take it off the record if she doesn't have a ticket for liek 6 months. The judge's office told her she could do this by mail but that it would cost $330, which seems a bit high right? Would defensive driving be a better route? OR would she still have to pay the tickets, which are coincidentally $330. It seems like a bum deal, but she can't get down there to plead not guilty and who knows if she'd even win since it was her car that caused the accident. Any help would be appreciated.
a) Failure to maintain control is a ticket. And I was given similar reasoning once--had to give a ticket because a car (mine) had to be towed. So even though he didn't see fault in me, he had to give me something. It was dumb. b) Usually deferred adjudication ends up costing a little more than the total cost if you go the defensive driving option. So IF you can find out for sure that defensive driving would get her out of all charges (it sounds like you might be unclear on whether she has 2 offenses or just 1)...that would probably be a better option. -Plus, often, deferred adjudication requires defensive driving in addition to the probation...so that would add to the $330 c) it sounds like you have no defense for a not-guilty plea unless you get a lawyer and try it or something.
oh, and if you do end up going with deferred adjudication...make sure you get the details from the court on EVERy step you have to go through. The steps defer from court to court.. sometimes the probationary period and/or jurisdiction is different...sometimes you have to send in your driving record after the period...sometimes you have to take defensive driving...etc.
