Glerald

from a criminal defense attorney I second that.

3uros

Wow dude...that sucks...without the option to do a trial by written declaration, I second all the other comments here. I would 1000% hire a lawyer and not show up alone. The cost to hire a lawyer would be worth it versus the amount of extra money you will be dishing out to insure your 911 for the next few years.

Schwarz992C4S

It was 1985 and I was doing over 130 in my new 944 in the high desert trying to get my baby boy to edwards AFB for breathing problems. CHP caught up to me when stop at the base gate behind a slowwww truck. Arrested after the Drs appointment and had same date court appearance. Son had follow on appointments and all worked out well. Today he serves in the US Armay as a career soldier.

For me? I Plead no contest with explanation. Received 3 days county service, $550 fine and mandatory driving school.

Moral of the story...look out for slow trucks. 🤗

Mb111

You’ll likely find a traffic court lawyer...at traffic court! That’s how I found my cousin Vinny (his name really was Vincent). If you don’t have a friend who has ‘a guy’, just go to the place where they do business. I went to traffic court a few weeks before my trial date and sat in the back and looked for a lawyer who was representing someone else that seemed like he was a regular - that person will stick out and be obvious if you sit there for a little while. I approached him, told him my plight and he gave me his card and later that afternoon I sent him a copy of my ticket and my credit card for his fee. 2 days later he told me to go into the ticket system and pay my expensive ‘parking ticket’. His fee was something like $100/per point on my license the infraction would have been. In NY there are lawyers that can plead down almost any moving violation to a parking ticket in major metro areas - they know people in the court system and I don’t want to know any more than that. Not sure you can do that now with COVID, though.

AlexCeres

Basic speeding violations pretty much never require a mandatory court appearance(*). Either you don’t understand the full implications of what the cop wrote up, or he screwed you extra hard on a basic citation. Either way, you want a lawyer to manage the future insurance costs / consequences if nothing else.

* in OP jurisdiction, cops don’t do this normally unless the offense is more serious than a vanilla speeding ticket

whilechukwuzout

are you from Santa Clara (county)?

AlexCeres

Might have some ... friends experience with traffic enforcement in Santa Clara. Not saying you didn’t simply get on the cop’s bad side, or he didn’t just check the wrong box, **** happens, but a mandatory appearance is not typical for a basic speed ticket. The amount of the excess speed may have some aggravating factors not immediately obvious from just the vehicle code. Time for professional help.

NorCal isn’t Virginia. Don’t speed in Virginia. People go to jail in Virginia for moving violations that CHP wouldn’t bother citing.

mdrobc1213

As many have said....Hire a lawyer and let him/her take care of arguing the case down. It will cost you some $$ but normally much less than the insurance premium increase you're facing and likely they will have a lot better chance of doing so as most have relationships with the court/DA.

A year ago my son had something similar with 20+ over posted speed limit and they cited him with reckless driving, besides speeding and the officer even had him call me to release him into my custody vs arresting him (it was Xmas eve-eve so that was nice of him). So he was in jeopardy which often can be at the sole discretion of the complaining/arresting officer.. besides points, there was also the possibility of the suspension of his license too and like you a mandatory trial/court date was set. Went online and did a little research and found a few candidates and also asked JAG on base and ultimately found 2-3 candidates and sent them an email explaining the situation and copy of my son's citation. Ultimately spent $950 in lawyers fees to handle the case and then after multiple continuations [due to COVID19] he ended up with just basic speeding and fine paid for 10mph over plus court fee of $15. All in all out about $1200 but the possible suspension of his license would have cost much more in lost money (he's was a Dominoes Pizza driver and Uber driver at the time) as besides work he also had to get to classes on campus too and I couldn't drive him around daily. Experience also proved helpful when my daughter was pulled over for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle when she didn't move over enough lanes while driving past an accident and police car during a rainstorm, driving without insurance, and proper registration [the later two were BS as we had JUST bought here the car about 3 weeks ago and all the docs were in the car which she showed the police man who promptly ignored them and said they were not in order...they were!.I cannot make this up guys]. So same lawyer got her off for just failure to properly signal and $75 fine plus his fee and dismissal of all of the other charges once i went to the dealership and got duplicates of all the paperwork that she had presented (some of which the police officer kept).

So yeah find a good legal guy/gal specializing in traffic stuff in your jurisdiction would be my call same as would you call a brain surgeon to fix your painful wisdom tooth? Good Luck!

Mozella55

Shakespeare was right when he talked about lawyers. You are facing a situation where you will feel as though you're dealing with Tony Soprano. Think about it. Nearly every Judge started out as an attorney. These guys stick together, so if you show up in court without one when the offense is pretty serious (and in your case it definitely is), the Judge will punish you for not hiring someone from the brotherhood. Observe any legal proceeding. When it comes time for a lunch break, your attorney will slap someone on the back, have a good laugh, and invite them to a lunch. Will that person be you, the guy paying him an arm and a leg? NO.......... it will be the opposing attorney, the guy you hate with a passion but a person who your attorney regards as his best buddy.

YOU are not one of the guys. You're just the sucker struggling to pay for his 911 and now you're trapped in a position to pay for part of your lawyer's 911.

But your attorney, since he's one of the guys, will be able to negotiate a deal with the Judge since they're both "one of the guys". You will not be in a good position to negotiate because you are NOT one of the guys. It's gonna' be expensive, that much is clear.

Sad-to-say, those here who claim you should hire an attorney are probably correct. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that most of the people on this thread who insist on you hiring an attorney are just that.

I'm reminded of that famous Poncho Villa joke the punch line of which is ........................"What could I do, he had the gun. And you ask me if I know Poncho Villa? We eat lunch together". Google it.

You can usually identify someone who has never hired an attorney..... they call it "The Justice System". Those who have dealt with lawyers and Judges before, call it "The Legal System". See the difference?

997usa

So true.. They are all 'in bed' with each other; my 'judge', was the law firm's partner of the lawyer I hired a while back.....points dropped, mandatory 'defensive driving' course (boooooring), and good to go. $350.

Mb111

If your state allows defensive driving courses to be taken online that's the easiest and fastest way to a 10% discount on your car insurance. I (and the wife) do it every 3 yrs (it expires) from a company called iDriveSafely, but there are many. They make you 'watch' 8 hrs of videos and take a short quiz after each segment and then dial into an automated phone line to verify your identity. I've done it 3x and the course hasn't changed the 3x I've done it. You start the video, come back at the end and I'm pretty sure most people on here will pass the quizzes after the video segment ends without paying close attention to it. I think it cost $50 bucks and it's good for 3 yrs. It saves me about $350/yr so pretty good ROI right there. I usually do it on New Years or a snowy day when you're stuck in the house with nothing better to do. You can multi-task it while watching some ball games.

AlexCeres

the problem is the way this citation is written is that it's too severe for traffic school and the court appearance is mandatory. that should be a giant clue stick that the situation has escalated beyond DIY. I'm not a lawyer. I just pay the minor tickets and move on with life. Fighting them isn't worth it to me. This is not minor. I would never ever under any circumstances show up in court for anything for any reason without a lawyer. I don't do amateur hour in any other aspect of life. Why the **** would I do so staring down possible criminal sanctions ? OP is being forced into court. This is un-good.

malba2366

You can search for traffic lawyers in your city on Google. They usually charge $500-600 to represent you for a speeding ticket if you have an otherwise clean driving record. They usually get it reduced to a no points violation and a fine. They usually are friends with the judge, and they will come in at the end of the session with the dockets of 10-15 people they are representing and knock them out with the judge in one sitting, you also don't have to go to the traffic court if you use a lawyer since they are appearing on your behalf.

Mozella55

Sounds like a RICO situation to me, but I'm just a citizen; not part of the judicial system or the political class.

John Mclane

The lawyer that I got works as a contractor for a next door county, prosecuting DUI. As long as he doesn't confuse the days of the week...