I blatantly ran a neighborhood stop sign going about 15-20 mph and a cop saw me and pulled me over and issued me a ticket. I'm not interested in challenging the ticket but I was wondering what options I have as far as keeping this off my record, since this is the first ticket I have ever received. Court date is April 15 and as of right now I understand that my options are: 1. Go to court, hope the cop doesn't show. 2. Take Defensive Driving(Do I take this before my court date or after?) 3. Deferring??? (I have no idea what this is, hoping someone could help with this.) I was also wondering can I just pay the fine and go on probation? And what would happen if I didn't show up to court?
You should just have to take defensive driving, show up to the court date showing you took defensive driving and pay like a 10 dollar fee to get it off your record or something like that. There's a number on the ticket, call and ask them. You can take defensive driving online it costs like 20 dollars and also just have a piece of paper of your driving record or something.
This reminds me of that thread maybe six months ago where the guy was going to plead not guilty to his traffic ticket, and had this MS Paint drawing he was going to submit as evidence.... anybody who has donated want to search that for me?
No, plead deferred adjudication. I used it for a prior speeding ticket and it's completely off my record (with no increase in insurance). Just research it or find a lawyer to tell you more about it (for free ) http://www.tajlr.com/index..html
You should take defensive driving and in most cases you don't even have to go to court. Check the info on your ticket for instructions. Some cities / courts let you go online and request defensive driving + pay the necessary fee's. Then when you get the certificate you just mail it to the court and you are done.
Don't do the deferred option if you're under 25. They will still make you take defensive driving. I was in your exact predictament about three months ago. Ironically, I also ran a stop sign. I say take defensive driving. But the key is to take it at Comedy Defensive Driving school. It's available every Saturday. It's six hours long (required by the state). I did it yesterday and I actually sort of a had a good time. It's not some hokey, old guy who tells lame jokes. They get real comedians who do it to get some extra cash. This guy I had was hilarious and basically used the six hours as an extended stand up routine. When he did talk about driving, he would just throw out some crazy statistics that you would never know. Oh, and he told us every single question on the test. http://www.comedydefensivedriving.com/
I believe you cannot take defensive driving for the ticket until the judge allows you to. First get the judge's permission before you do anything.
After about 2 weeks, the ticket will show up in the court system and you can apply for defensive driving. Its a fairly simple process...I'm in the middle of watching the defensive driving video right now. For the first 10 years of driving, I never got a ticket. And then I got two speeding tickets in the past month. Both were ridiculous. The first occurred when I exited I-10 and got on the feeder. A cop (not the car...the actual cop) was hiding in the bushes with a laser and then walked into the middle of the road and waved me over. He said that I was going 62 mph and that the speed limit was 50 mph. I told him I was in the process of decelerating after getting off I-10, and he said that was no excuse and that I needed to be at 50 mph by the time I reached the end of the exit ramp. The second occurred on I-10 itself. A cop pulled me over and ticketed me for going 70 mph when the speed limit was 60. I've read articles that cops nationwide are cracking down on traffic violations as a way to bring revenue to their cities. Be careful guys.
To the OP's question, and to clear up the misunderstanding on the law... Deferred Adjudication is done in Class A and B misdemeanors, and in felony cases. It doesn't apply to traffic tickets. Deferred Disposition is the agreement you can enter into for traffic tickets and class C misdemeanors (only). Unlike Deferred Adjudication, you can get a full expungement of the offense, and not just a nondisclosure order. I'd recommend the defensive driving if that's an option. If not, the deferred disposition is generally pretty painless, often just a fine and you have to not pick up any new charges during the deferred period (generally, 3 to 6 months). Good luck to you.
I agree with the "Defensive Driving" camp... at least you're admitting you were guilty, which is a good start. And superden is right. The judge or District Attorney will help decide that before you just decide on your own. A Classic. Google Maps Street View was my friend in that thread.
Maybe yes maybe no, but if you get a ticket for 10mph over the limit, it's hard to classify that as ridiculous or search for some "quota" conspiracy as explanation. Neither sounded all that ridiculous to me. As for the rest of it, take DD and be done with it.
In my case, I got a ticket on 2/28/09 and to this day, they have no records of it. I'm hoping they forget and my ticket gets dismissed. My court date is supposed to be on 4/06/09.
