How To Evaluate If You Should Fight A Traffic Ticket

The initial aggravation of being pulled over and issued a ticket can be pretty intense. Whether you are frustrated with yourself, or frustrated with the police officer who gave you your ticket, emotions can rise pretty high. As a little time passes, you may find yourself staring at the traffic ticket that seemed so unjust initially, and wondering, should you fight a traffic ticket?
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This is a difficult question to answer, but lets begin with your motivation. If you are just fighting the ticket because you’re angry, it’s probably not worth fighting, eventually the emotions you feel about this particular traffic violation will abate.
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If you are fighting the ticket because it is expensive and you don’t want to pay the fine, take a moment to consider what your time is worth. What do you make hourly at your job? How many hours will you spend researching the ticket, preparing for court, and add to this time at least half of a work day that you will miss on the day of your trial. If you aren’t prepared to invest significant time fighting the ticket, you aren’t likely to win. If you do invest significant time, you may find that you are losing more money fighting the ticket than you would be simply paying the ticket and moving on. Plus there is the real risk that you will lose the fight and the court costs added to your fine will make the ticket even more expensive.



If you are fighting the ticket because you genuinely believe it is incorrect, or because the points against your license will cause problems for you, or because you have had enough tickets that another ticket will pose a significant increase in your insurance premiums, then it is likely worth it to fight the ticket in court.
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If you are planning to fight the ticket in court, remember that you must have actual evidence that the information on the ticket is incorrect, or that you did not actually break the specific law in question when the law is fully laid out, or that some error was made in the evidence gathering process, like the radar equipment had not being thoroughly calibrated or maintained according to protocols.
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