Top Myths About Speeding Tickets

A simple speeding ticket. I would say that in my twenty years of criminal prosecuting, in terms of run of the mill traffic tickets, 90-95% of the the time it was a speeding ticket. Drivers and defendants for some reason have the strangest ideas about a speeding ticket and those speeding ticket notions just aren't true. If you want to avoid finding out the hard way about a speeding ticket then read on and the learn the biggest speeding ticket myths.

Myth 1. I'm not a lawyer so I can't represent myself in court on a speeding ticket
False. Many regular people represent themselves on a speeding ticket. They negotiate their speeding ticket with the prosecutor to the extent they can and they even take their own speeding ticket cases to trial, sometimes jury trials. Do a little on-line research on representing yourself on your speeding ticket case before you come to court. You can even get a copy of your own permanent driving history at any Driver's Bureau Office. This isn't to say you can do a better job of it than an experienced lawyer can with your speeding ticket, but you can do it.

Myth 2. If I pay a few extra dollars the speeding ticket won't be a part of my permanent driving record.
False. Paying the extra money to keep a speeding ticket off your permanent record is a good idea if you can do it. In Illinois this disposition is called court supervision. It's called other things in other states but it's the same thing. Many states like Illinois, limit the number of times a driver can do this with traffic citations in a given period of time. For example, in Illinois a driver can get traffic supervision twice in any 12 month period. But, even this can be misleading.

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Credit: photo by Master Sgt. Lek Mateo

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