How Traffic Lawyers Fix Speeding Tickets

If you’re fresh out of law school and eager to start making money to pay back those student loans, one of the great places to start is traffic law. Motorists number in the millions and every year a reliable percentage of the driving population gets caught in the process of breaking traffic laws. Whether it’s running a stop sign, speeding through a small town, or improper use of turn signal, moving violations are a way to help keep the roads safe, as well as a way for municipalities to generate a reliable source of revenue.

But how does traffic law work, exactly? From the ticketed motorist’s point-of-view it goes something like this: a moving violation equals a point removed from their driver’s license, which not only means being one mistake closer to having the license revoked but having auto insurance rates increase due to being deemed a less safe driver. Some people accept these long-term penalties and choose to pay the original fine. Others, either after seeing promo products and advertising or by word-of-mouth, decide they’d rather hire a traffic lawyer to fix the ticket so that it will not result in a point removed and rates increased.

How a traffic lawyer manages to fix your ticket is a subject of some mystery to many motorists who opt to hire one for their case. After paying the attorney anywhere from $50 to $250 depending on the prices quoted on their promotional materials and the type of violation in question, the client is told they will be contacted in a few weeks time. Indeed, if it’s the type of lawyer who is on the ball, the client will receive a call from the office within a month informing them that their moving violation was successfully pleaded down to a non-moving violation. The lawyer or the lawyer’s paralegal explains the new fine is larger but will not result in a point being removed from their license and their insurance premiums rising.

As long as the upgraded moving violation is paid, everyone walks away happy. However, some people are probably curious about how their lawyer was able to take a speeding ticket and turn it into excessive vehicle noise. Are lawyers really that good at making arguments?

Well, yes and no. The secret behind how traffic lawyers fix speeding tickets has mostly to do with that special word we mentioned earlier, “revenue.”

When a police officer is finished issuing a ticket for speeding or one for another moving violation, the case becomes the responsibility of the local prosecutor's office, otherwise known as the district attorney. These are the state-paid lawyers tasked with determining which cases go before a judge.

If you’re able to hire a traffic lawyer before the prosecutor’s office gets to your case, the attorney can contact them with an offer; their client is willing to plead guilty to a lesser infraction with a costlier fine, such as the aforementioned excessive vehicle noise, in exchange for the existing case to be dropped. Given the typical workload for a prosecutor, this arrangement is an attractive one, assuming certain criteria are met such as the driver not having an existing poor driving record.

Most importantly, however, is the fact that the municipality the prosecutor works for will wind up with more money from the motorist than they would if the original speeding ticket had been paid. More revenue means providing better services to the public, which justifies the decision to make the change.

To recap, the way your traffic lawyer fixes your speeding ticket goes like this: she either calls up or visits in person the prosecutor’s office of the jurisdiction where the infraction occurred. She briefly explains how her client has had good driving history up to this point, and that he is willing to pay the higher fine for a lesser charge. The prosecutor agrees, the ticket is “fixed” and everyone walks away feeling like they got something out of the arrangement; the client avoids losing license points, the municipality gains revenue, and the lawyer makes a decent income.