I read a short article this morning on the Tampa Tribune website. It posed the question of whether “there is some sort of technique to getting out of traffic citations.”

It caught my eye because it hit on a point I’ve been trying to make for years. Everyone wants to know if “I can say this or do this or use this defense or if officers are like this or that”… These questions are with respect to both before and after a ticket is issued.

People want black/white solutions to their problems, but such solutions rarely exist. My answers are almost always “maybe, it depends, could be, etc.”… One officer pulls you over and is in a good mood and gives you a warning, another pulls you over 2 minutes after getting into a fight with his wife on the phone. One judge buys your story about why you were talking on a cell phone while another judge’s aunt was just hit by a driver who was talking on the phone two days prior to your hearing.

Bottom line is, when a person has the power to use discretion–as officers who pull you over do–it is impossible to set rules to how that discretion will be exercised. Different people see things differently. Thus, there never will be one “technique” that works all the time.

Related to this are all the “one size fits all” BS beating traffic ticket books and “secrets” and websites out there. The thought that there are universal solutions that don’t take into account different personalities, different jurisdictions within a state and even different laws and evidence as you go from state to state is absolutely ridiculous. Within NY alone there are 2 “types” of courts that are so different from each other it’s obvious universal solutions or tricks just don’t exist.

All this doesn’t mean how you are treated or whether you are successful before or after you are issued a ticket is completely random or out of your hands. Courtesy on the road increases your chances of getting a warning and and smart strategy based on the applicable local rules and procedures in court will increase your chances of success. However, don’t waste too much time searching for some “magic bullet”. It’s unlikely you’ll find it.

The original article written by Jessica Balanza can be found here: Do you have a foolproof way of avoiding speeding tickets?

Yesterday the Nassau County Traffic and Parking Violations Agency fired six employees for fixing more than 100 tickets. News reports didn’t mention that they were actually selling their “fixing” services. It seems the tickets in question were for themselves, friends and family.

The investigation apparently started with an individual who was issued several Nassau County traffic tickets.  Some of the charges, including a driving on the sidewalk, driving the wrong way on a one-way street and a speeding ticket were dismissed outright. Other charges were delayed longer than a case typically would be within the court rules and some fines and surcharges imposed on other cases were simply removed from the computer system.

Turns out this man had a relative working in the court and this relative was one of the six employees fired.

The ticket fixing cost Nassau County an estimated $25,000 in revenue. Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice is investigating the possibility of criminal charges against them.

Nothing has been proven yet, according to the Civil Service Employees Association representing the employees. The President of the Association believes the employees will be vindicated. He claims that in most cases, a judge signed off on the dismissals of the tickets in question.

The NCTPVA is one of the better courts in the state to deal with and, based on my observations and those of my colleagues, the staff there (including some of those involved in this unfortunate incident) have been professional and helpful in the past.  I’m hoping that these individuals are indeed vindicated in the long run.

We’ll follow the story as it develops.

We were able to help a client out with an unsafe lane change ticket today.  The charge was dismissed.

My client explained to me he really didn’t think he did anything wrong.  I sympathized with him.  Traffic tickets like this one are sometimes difficult to accept and to adjudicate because the concept of “unsafe” is subjective.

With speeding tickets or red light tickets, a motorist might disagree with an officer but one of the two must be right (and the other wrong, of course) about what happened.  In those cases, the light was either red or it wasn’t, and the speed of the vehicle was either over the limit or it wasn’t.  There are plenty of other factors in play in cases like those but they are different from a subjective charge like unsafe lane change.

With a subjective ticket like unsafe lane change, the motorist and officer can agree 100% on what occurred but still disagree on whether what occurred constituted a violation.

With a subjective ticket like unsafe lane change, I feel there’s unofficially an extra burden on the issuing officer.  He needs to do more than testify to what he saw or recorded.  He needs to offer testimony as to why what he saw or recorded constituted a violation of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law.  With measurable offenses like speeding and red light, this is self explanatory.

Today’s case was won based on the officer’s inability to offer sufficient testimony with respect to “why” the lane change described was deemed “unsafe” and worthy of a traffic summons.  The officer merely testified that my client changed lanes “unsafely”.  He offered nothing with respect to why or how the movement was unsafe.  How close was my client to another vehicle?  At what speed was he traveling?  Did he signal?  What was traffic like?  None of these questions were answered.

I knew right away the officer’s testimony wouldn’t be sufficient for the charge to stand.  I made a motion to dismiss and it was granted.

Submitted by NY traffic ticket attorney Matthew Greenberg

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.