This is a major gamble to take, however, especially if you are eligible for traffic school. If the officer does show up, you almost certainly will be found guilty, which means that you will need to pay a fine and get points on your record.
If you blew through a red light at 80 mph, the officer probably will make a point of coming to court so that you do not get away with it. If you were making a U-turn on a quiet street when an approaching car was slightly less than feet away from you, the officer may not make the effort to show up. Sometimes an officer will be less eager to come to court if it is far away from where they work.
The summer season sees more no-shows than others because more officers tend to be on vacation. Last reviewed October Traffic Tickets Contents. Should You Fight a Traffic Ticket?
Did You Actually Violate the Law? Do You Have Another Defense? Traffic Tickets. Traffic Stops by Police. Consequences of Traffic Tickets. How to Fight a Traffic Ticket. Researching Traffic Laws. Proceedings in Traffic Court. You should exercise that right vigorously and without compromise and you should not feel guilty for doing so. The law allows you to contest any traffic infraction entirely by mail.
In this way you can contest your citation without appearing at all and, for reasons already discussed, will have a better chance of winning than at trial. Further, if you lose your trial by declaration, you have 20 days to request a Trial de Novo new trial pursuant to CVC d. You then can appear in court for the first time for your second chance of winning.
Most courtesy notices hardly mention or do not mention these rights at all. If they even mention the possibility of contesting a citation, they also mention that this generally requires two court appearances, one to plead not guilty, a second for the actual trial. If you do appear in person to plead not guilty, most courts will make you enter your plea last, inconveniencing you to the maximum. Then it will ask you to return to court for a trial. The California Traffic Court System extorts over a billion dollars a year from California citizens by keeping us ignorant of our rights.
California traffic courts use the formality of the courthouse to further intimidate those brave enough to appear, scaring them into pleading guilty or accepting an assignment to attend traffic school. The court strong-arms the majority of defendants, too busy or too intimidated to appear, to surrender without a fight: we collapse like a piece of IKEA furniture and meekly mail in the protection money hoping these bullies will leave us alone. By sustaining this proctological racket, California traffic courts rake in a small fortune for state, county, and local governments.
Al Capone would be proud. The court has done its best to discourage you from contesting your ticket. My site is designed to expose the not-so-scary Wizard of Oz hiding behind the trappings and formality of the law. You can contest your ticket by mail without a single court appearance. No person in a residential district shall make a U-turn when any other vehicle is approaching from either direction within feet, except at an intersection when the approaching vehicle is controlled by an official traffic control device.
If you can show that your conduct didn't violate even one element of the law, you are home free. For example, if the area where you were ticketed was not a residential district, the judge should find you not guilty. In most cases, you won't have a technical defense based on the elements of the offense. Traffic officers are generally pretty good at identifying the correct code section corresponding to the alleged violation. But you may still have a viable defense to present in traffic court.
Some defenses have a good chance of success. However, there are also some defenses that drivers often try but almost never succeed. So, it's important to know which defenses work and which typically don't work in traffic court. The best strategies for fighting a traffic ticket depend heavily on the specific circumstances. For example, defenses to speeding tickets often involve challenging the accuracy of the officer's speed measurement.
And with stop sign and red light tickets assuming it's not a red light camera ticket , showing that the officer didn't have a good vantage point to accurately assess the situation can be a successful defense. Drivers frequently come into traffic court with excuses that don't amount to legal defenses. For example, a driver might say something like, "I was in a hurry to get to work and didn't realize how fast I was going.
It's also common for drivers to simply dispute the officer's version of events without providing any reasons or support. When a case comes down to the driver's word against the officer's word, the driver typically loses. No matter what your defense is, you normally win if the officer fails to show up on the day of the trial. Don't underestimate the possibility of this happening. For all sorts of reasons, including the officer being on vacation, having a scheduling conflict, having been transferred, or not being notified of the court date, cops often miss court hearings.
The information provided on this site is not legal advice, does not constitute a lawyer referral service, and no attorney-client or confidential relationship is or will be formed by use of the site.
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