How You Can Fight Traffic Tickets

Getting pulled over by a police officer can be very stressful. The violation you may receive as a result of this stop may even cause distress to your wallet. In addition to having to pay the actual ticket, your insurance premiums may increase as well. Not to mention the demerit points that will be put on your driving record for a few years (according to your state's regulations). If you feel like you have been unfairly served with traffic tickets, there are a number of techniques you can use to fight your traffic violation.

In several states you can challenge the police officer's subjectivity of what happened. Since many times a traffic violation is a direct result of an officer's subject view of how you were driving, challenge this view. For instance, if you are pulled over for making an "unsafe left", you can challenge by stating that your actions were responsible and you were not risking harm to anyone or anything. Use facts to justify your claim. This can be the location of where the police officer was located when making this judgment.

Usually the details of the violation come down to your word against the officer's word. More often than not, the judge sides with the officer. There are, however, steps you can take to create doubt in the mind of the judge as to whether the officer made the right call.

Support your case by having eyewitness statements. Bystanders or passengers who can testify to your version of what happened are examples of eyewitnesses. You can use a simple diagram to show the location of your car in reference to the police officer's vehicle, and any other kind of traffic stops. This can be especially helpful for violations that have occurred at intersections.

You may photograph intersections, stop signs or road conditions to prove a point. These photos can be used to show conditions like unclear stop signs. Or, you can use this technique to show that from where the officer's car was standing the officer could not have accurately seen what exactly happened.

Sometimes you will find that a judge may be willing to be a little lenient if you prove that there were circumstances beyond your control and you made an honest mistake. For instance, you may have been taken by surprise by a new stop sign. If you did not stop at a pedestrian crosswalk because the strips were faded, you can the violation on the premise that you did not see the strips. This is a defense based on the notion that you were not clear on what was expected of you in the first place.

Sometimes it may be worth your while to pursue a defense that your action was legally justified. For instance, you may have been driving too slowly in the left lane. You may have been preparing to make a legal left turn, which was the cause of slowing down. Do not deny you were driving slowly, but were being careful in order to make the left turn.

Traffic tickets may seem unbeatable, but fighting your violation can help save you immediate and long term expenses. If a violation sticks you will have to pay the applicable fee. You will also have to deal with higher insurance premiums on your monthly coverage.