Traffic school is available to California Driver\u2019s who receive a ticket and have not been to traffic school in 18 months.\u00a0 Traffic school is not available for people travelling over 20 MPH above the posted speed limit, or who are commercial driver\u2019s (unless in passenger vehicle).<\/p>\n
Riverside County has started a new cost saving measure in July 2013 where the only way to set up a court appearance for an arraignment or trial on a traffic ticket is online.\u00a0 There is no way to see a clerk without an appointment in advance.\u00a0 There also is no way to set up a court appearance on the same day.\u00a0 This is a big change to how things were prior to 2013.\u00a0\u00a0 It used to be that if an attorney or person with a ticket came to the clerk\u2019s window early in the morning they could get the case on the calendar for arraignment that same day.<\/p>\n
So, the questions to be\u00a0addressed\u00a0here\u00a0are:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0Whether it is worth the time and money to challenge a traffic ticket at all?<\/p>\n
2) \u00a0If it is worth it, should an attorney be used?<\/p>\n
For a commercial driver or someone accused of travelling over 20 miles per hour above the speed limit it is always (every rule has some exception) wise to set the matter for trial.\u00a0 First, for commercial driver\u2019s who cannot go to traffic school it is critical to avoid points on their driving record.\u00a0 By challenging a ticket in almost all situations either a non-moving violation can be obtained from the Judge.\u00a0 Although less common recently, cases can be won outright when the CHP officer does not appear or does not have the necessary foundational documents showing proper use and functioning of radar\/lydar equipment.\u00a0 I have found that as long as the truck driver has not received another reduced charge in the past year or two that obtaining a reduced non-moving violation is the common practice.<\/p>\n
Secondly, in the\u00a0case of someone charged with going more than 20 miles per hour over the speed limit challenging the case can open the possibility of obtaining a more favorable result than merely paying the ticket and accepting the consequences.\u00a0 In some instances traffic school can be obtain if the officer and judge are not opposed to reducing the speed to under 20 miles above the speed limit.\u00a0 In other instances the officer either does not appear or is not prepared to meet his\/her burden that the defendant was speeding at all and the matter is dismissed.\u00a0 Another possibility is pleading to a non-point violation and paying the same fine.\u00a0 Coasting \u2014 Vehicle Code Section 21710, Failure to obey a sign \u2014 Vehicle Code Section 38300, or Off highway unsafe speed \u2014 Vehicle Code Section 38305 are somewhat common non-point resolutions sought to resolve a ticket without any points.<\/p>\n
Saving the ability to go to traffic school at a later time is a person to person decision.\u00a0 If you fall into the category of drivers who get pulled over by the police every year or two then fighting every traffic ticket is worth the time and money.\u00a0 The benefit of hiring an attorney is that the attorney goes to court for you saving you at least 2-3 hours of travel and waiting in court.\u00a0 Remember that you cannot go to trial on the first appearance in court.\u00a0 The first appearance is the arraignment where the defendant enters a not guilty plea.\u00a0 That is also the time where most unrepresented defendants are ordered to post the amount of the ticket in bail.\u00a0 Many times (almost all) defendants with attorneys are not required to post bail.\u00a0 Whether anyone should have to post bail in a traffic case is a topic for another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Traffic school is available to California Driver\u2019s who receive a ticket and have not been to traffic school in 18 months.\u00a0 Traffic school is not available for people travelling over 20 MPH above the posted speed limit, or who are commercial driver\u2019s (unless in passenger vehicle). Riverside County has started a new cost saving measure Read more about Is It Worth The Time and Money To Fight Traffic Ticket With An Attorney?<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62,"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertbk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}