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Contesting a Traffic Ticket

What a moving violation citation actually is, the difference between an infraction and a traffic misdemeanour, and the procedures - hearing, written defence, traffic school - for answering one.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

A traffic citation is a charge, not a finding. Paying it is a plea of guilty or no contest that goes on the driving record and, in most states, adds points and reaches the driver's insurer. Contesting it means entering a not-guilty plea by the date on the ticket and either appearing for a hearing or, where the state allows it, submitting a written defence. The officer must then establish the violation; if the officer does not appear or the evidence is insufficient, the ticket is dismissed.

Most moving violations are infractions: non-criminal or minor offences carrying a fine, points and sometimes a licence consequence, but no jail. Some driving offences are misdemeanours or worse - reckless driving, driving on a suspended licence, impaired driving, leaving the scene - and those are criminal cases with the rights and consequences that come with them. The distinction decides whether there is a jury, whether counsel will be appointed, and what standard of proof applies; states differ on whether an infraction must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt or by a civil standard, and a few states handle ordinary tickets in an administrative tribunal rather than a court.

Several states let a driver with a clean recent record attend a traffic safety course in exchange for the violation being dismissed or kept off the record, and many courts offer a deferred disposition that dismisses the ticket after a period without further violations. A ticket from another state is not escaped by ignoring it: under interstate compacts most states report convictions to the driver's home state, which treats them as its own, and a failure to appear can produce a suspension at home.

Where this comes from

Traffic offences and their procedure are state and local law. Representative provisions are California Vehicle Code § 40902 (trial by written declaration) and Penal Code § 19.6 (no jury for infractions), New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 225 and following (administrative adjudication of traffic infractions in designated jurisdictions), and Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 45.051 (deferred disposition). Interstate reporting runs through the Driver License Compact and the Nonresident Violator Compact, adopted by statute in the member states.

When people hire a lawyer for this

For an ordinary infraction the question is arithmetic the driver can usually do alone: the fine against the insurance and points consequences of a conviction, and whether traffic school or a deferred disposition is available. A lawyer is worth consulting when the ticket is a misdemeanour, when a conviction would push the record to a suspension, when the driver holds a commercial licence, which forecloses most diversion options, or when the citation came out of a crash that may become a civil claim.

Find a lawyer for this in your state

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

Related free reference tools: statute of limitations for a personal-injury claim, by state, quoted from each state's official text - part of LawyerLand's legal reference tools.