I think this is called "Deferred Judication".

Sometimes, locales will allow you to not have the ticket on your record if you pay a fine and not receive a ticket for a certain period - typically 180-days.

Check with the Municipal Court where you received your ticket...

 

I just called the District court asking my options.

A) Pay $130 speeding ticket

B) Take Defense Driving For $35 which will reduce my ticket to $80 and I won't need to go to court. Total: $115. This will remove the ticket from my record.

So looks like either way i'm going to have to pay for this ticket unless under some miracle I go in front of the judge and he says something different. Anyone got anything more on this now knowing what the court told me on the phone?

 

Will option B) affect your insurance rate? If not, consider that a bargain. Did you request a court date?

 

Hi jjryan,
I would say take the course and pay the 80 bucks and call it a wash. Depending on your cost / hour of lost work taking the class, looks like you can't win. This is why we have solons sitting around for hours on end making the big bucks thinking of all the scenarios us poor folk try and come up with to beat the system. In MA, not only do you get the enjoyment of paying the fine, taking the class and going to court, you get hit for 6 yrs on your insurance for $50/yr, which = $300 on top of the fine.... ouch.. Three speeding/moving violations in one year and you lose your license for ~ 90 days.

Just try and keep it under 10mph of posted limits from now on. Here in MA, they will usually look the other way if you're going 39 in a 30 zone, etc...and maybe invest in a cheapo batt operated detector so at least you know there's radar around and a dark plastic front license plate cover that scatters laser light for those times when you aren't paying attention to the mph's.

Best of luck and hope this works out as best it can.

 

Ditto to ralph_dog and livvie.

It's going to cost you money - all you can do now is to keep the offence from going on your record and raising your insurance rates. The record and insurance definately hurts more than the fine, paperwork, and possible course.

 

yeah definitely going to suck it up and pay i think. court fees i'm hearing are 80 bucks alone so even if i went i'd break even so it works out. luckily i don't work saturdays unless it's at night so i won't take a loss on money by taking the course. i'm sure it's really boring though

reminds me of taking the mandatory 6 hour course i took to get my license back in NY. i won't be telling the insurance company so option B will not affect my rate. it will stay off my record so why tell them BUT i am going to show them proof i took the course so i can get the discount at least get something beneficial out of this.

 

I did fight one ticket in MA, but it wasn't for speeding. It was for illegal lane changes while exiting the highway.

It was very intimidating because you don't go up against a judge, instead it's a court magistrate. If you lose there, you have the option to bring your case in front of a judge.

Anyway, they gather a whole group of offenders into a room and you have to argue your case in front of everybody. I was 4th in line so I thought I would get to see how the magistrate would be. Well the first 3 cases for speeding get dismissed because the officer never filed the paper work!!! I was so pissed. The next guy up was also speeding but was responding to her mother who was sick and got beeped to respond.

Next me... I just argued that I paused between lane changes and that speed was not a factor because traffic was moving at sub 40mph. I also told the magistrate that I saw the officer in lane 1 and then saw a huge opening 3 cars in front of him. So I took that spot (3 spots up) so that I wouldn't cut into anybody. The magistrate wasn't having any of it, I thought I was doomed... then I said: Look any day of the week if I were in your shoes I would find everybody coming here guilty. But in my case speed was not a factor and the officer missed my pause between lane changes because he did not have a clear view of my car because there were 3 car in between myself and the officer. He then asked how long of a pause, I said about a second. He then goes on to say that at 60mph you are covering X amount of yards... blah, blah, blah... to which I said, yeup, but I was only going 30mph at the time. Haha. He said, fine, not responsible. You are either found responsible or not responsible.

 

Pay the ticket, don't go to court, and go online for traffic school. I did my 12 hours of traffic school in about 1 hour at home, on my computer.

You'll be out the cost of the ticket plus the cost of traffic school but it won't go on your insurance record. Plus it only takes an hour.

 

is the online course available in all states?

 

Hi Jamie,

It sounds like with option "B" you get some flexibility in the court date. If you show up, you might get lucky. At least now you know.

Now what I'm about to post is not meant as advice.

My wife's lead foot has led to numerous converstations with the law. In 1982, we had a Chevette with a 4-speed manual transmission. My wife kept 'lugging' the engine so I taught her that to shift-up one gear, the car had to be going the 'red line' speed mark of the lower gear (the Chevette had marks for the red-line speed of each gear.) So to go from 2nd to 3d, she had to be going at 1st gear 'red-line.' To go from 3d to 4th, she had to be going at 2nd gear 'red-line' (two red marks), approximately 45 mph. Then she got a speeding ticket going 45 mph in a 25 mph zone.

She went to court and the Judge asked her, "Mrs. Wilson, what do you have to say for yourself."

She said, "Your Honor, I was trying to shift into the next gear and my husband told me I had to be going the three-line red mark to shift into the 4th gear."

"Say WHAT?" the Judge said and the cops said, "Yes Sir, that is what she told us too!"

The courtroom instantly erupted in peals of laughter.

After things quieted down, the Judge wiped his eyes and said, "Mrs. Wilson, I wish your husband were here today. Case dismissed."

Bob Wilson