Have you recently been pulled over for speeding? Or running a stop sign? Or driving without a license? Regardless of the kind of traffic ticket that you have recently been cited, it is important to speak with an experienced traffic ticket attorney about whether it is worth mounting a defense to your alleged infraction. Depending on the unique circumstances that you’re facing, fighting your traffic ticket may be a good investment of your time and energy.
What Exactly Is a Traffic Ticket?
As an experienced traffic lawyer – including those who practice at The Law Offices of Mark T. Hurt – can explain in greater detail, a traffic ticket is a citation handed out by law enforcement to motorists who have allegedly violated traffic laws. Traffic tickets can be written for relatively minor infractions (such as failing to signal before changing lanes), serious infractions (such as reckless driving), and all kinds of “gray area” infractions on the spectrum of traffic laws enforced in each state.
Sometimes, it isn’t worth a motorist’s time and energy to fight a very minor traffic ticket. However, failure to fight a significant traffic ticket could result in significant consequences.
The Pros and Cons of Fighting Traffic Tickets
The primary drawbacks to fighting a traffic ticket are fairly obvious. First, there is no guarantee that you’ll win. In the event of a loss, you will have spent your valuable time, energy, and effort only to thwart those investments. Second, if you invest in an attorney’s assistance and you lose, you’ll need to pay some modest legal fees even though your case didn’t turn out in the way that you had hoped it would.
Yet, the potential benefits of fighting a traffic ticket can be truly significant and worth the risk that you may invest some of your resources into this effort without a guarantee of outcome. First, your insurance premiums might go up as a result of your ticket. If this happens, it may seem like you would be saving money on legal fees by simply paying the cost of the ticket, but it may turn out that you’ll pay more to insurers over time than you would to a lawyer who could potentially get your ticket dismissed. Second, many traffic ticket infractions will cost you points on your license. If you incur too many points in too short a period of time, your license could be suspended. Safeguarding your points now could, therefore, ultimately benefit you later.
It is also worth noting that some traffic tickets may be tied to offenses that could be charged criminally or that someone could hold you liable for in civil court if your infraction caused them to get injured. In these instances, you’ll need to speak with a lawyer about your situation anyway, so fighting your traffic ticket may serve as a natural extension of the representation you’ll need to wage your other legal battle(s) anyway.