At the NYS Traffic Violation Bureau, there is no plea bargaining (no negotiation). Thus, every contested ticket proceeds to a trial. (more…)

Points for a New York Speeding Ticket range from 3 to 11. The number of points put on your NY drivers license depends on how many mph over the limit you were driving–not your actual speed.

Speeding ticket NY points:

3 pts
An unspecified “unreasonable” speed
1-10 over the speed limit

4pts
11-20 over the speed limit

6pts
21-30 over the speed limit

8pts
31-40 over the speed limit

11pts
41+ over the speed limit

Two important notes on speeding tickets in NYC. The posted NYC speed limit is never higher than 50 mph and in areas where no speed limit is posted it’s automatically 30 mph. These are worth noting when discussing NYC speeding tickets.

Also note that one big speed (41+) is enough to result in suspension of a NY driver license and one single mid level speed (21+) is enough to subject a driver to large state assessments.

Considering the penalties and potential insurance increases, all New York speeding tickets should be handled carefully.

Submitted by NY speeding ticket attorney Scott Feifer

I was recently at the Queens North TVB office to fight a red light ticket for one of our clients. The issuing police officer was present and prepared for trial.

The officer’s testimony was quite detailed. He remembered where it happened, direction of travel, the set up of the intersection and where my client was throughout his observations. He testified that the signal lights were working properly and that there was a clearly marked crosswalk at the intersection where motorists must stop on red.

The relevant part of the officer’s testimony went something like this (I’m paraphrasing):

“I first saw the motorist at the time the light in question turned to red. I saw the motorist four car lengths from the marked crosswalk. I saw the motorist continue to drive over the crosswalk and straight through the intersection without stopping. I pulled the motorist over on the other side of the intersection…”

Right away it was obvious that a key piece of testimony was omitted. The officer never set forth what color the light was at the time my client crossed over that crosswalk and entered the intersection. The light may have been red when his vehicle was four car lengths prior to the intersection but we need to know if it was still red when he went through the intersection.

I made a motion to dismiss and the judge (reluctantly) granted it. No points, no fine.

Sometimes it’s just a simple omission that leads to a victory. You just need to know what you are looking for so if you happen to hear it (or don’t hear it as in this case) you can take advantage.

This case was in the Barker Town Court in Broome County. Our client was charged with:

• Failing to stop at a stop sign (3 points)
• Failing to keep right (3 points)
• Failing to yield to an emergency vehicle (3 points)
• Speeding 115mph in a 65mph zone (11 points)

Retention of our client’s privilege to drive was our number one goal. His particular job depended on it. Thus, we approached the District Attorney’s office with a proposal to structure a plea bargain that brought our client down to 14 points. We knew if we could get to 14 that he could then subtract 4 more points thanks to completion of an Accident Prevention course and would end up with 10 points total. DMV will issue a suspension order at 11 points—thus our goal to get to 10 or less.

Ultimately (after a few months of back and forth) we were able to convince the District Attorney to reduce the speed to 105/65 and to dismiss altogether the failure to yield to an emergency vehicle ticket. This brought the total down to 14 and his privilege was saved.

Fines and mandatory state surcharges were quite high.

I know people will think we didn’t do our job here (14 points!). However, we need to be realistic. Our client could easily have been sentenced to jail time. He could easily have lost his license and paid significantly more than he ultimately did in fines and surcharges.

When someone is issued 20 points worth of tickets at once, it’s not realistic to expect to get out of it with no damages whatsoever. It can happen but it’s not realist to expect it to happen. We handled this client’s case the way we handle all our cases. We looked at the charges, the court in question, our client’s driving history and his particular goals. We came up with an agreed upon strategy and got what we set out to get. Despite the 10 points, we consider this an example of a successful outcome.