Speeding Tickets and Other Traffic Violations 

How can a Speeding Ticket Lawyer help you with your traffic ticket? Why spend any money on traffic lawyers?

• It is common knowledge that speeding tickets increase the cost of car insurance.
• If you hire us, you need not go to court and waste often 2 plus hours of your life. We go to the court for you!
• We regularly practice in various courts in Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah, Renton, Kent, Everett, Arlington, Monroe and other cities. In fact, there is no court in the Seattle/Tacoma/Everett area where we have not practiced. This experience, besides detailed knowledge of the law and traffic regulations and many years of experience in the courtroom, allow us to provide the best traffic infraction defense as we know the requirements of each prosecutor and how each judge is likely to rule on a specific issue.
• When you get pulled over next time, the officer would be able to see that you had a committed violation in the past and we often hear that, assuming you got pulled over for a relatively minor violation, you are more likely to be let go with the warning if you have a good driving record.
• Disclaimer: If you think that you can do better than a lawyer who has been doing this for years and has pretty much seen every ticket there is to see and does this for a living, you do not need to contact us- stop reading here and go to another site.

There is a fundamental difference between various tickets: (i) tickets that affect your auto insurance rate (e.g., moving violation that become part of the driver's record per RCW 46.52.101  and 46.52.120 ) and (ii) tickets that do not have a direct effect on the insurance rate.

Thus, while we strive to dismiss the ticket, our focus is to prevent the increase of auto insurance rates.

How does insurance company normally find out about your ticket?

Once the judge rules that the ticket was "committed", that finding of "committed" is reported to the Department of Licensing (DOL) and your insurance company will obtain the data there. Technically, an insurance company can look up your driving record in the JIS but it this does not appear to be the usual practice of most insurance companies. However, non-moving violations (e.g., camera tickets and cell phone tickets) do not get reported to the DOL thus (as opposed to speeding tickets), such camera and cell phone tickets are treated very much like large parking tickets. Of course, when you get pulled over by an officer, he/she is able to review the full driving record (including tickets charged, amended and dismissed) and he/she can see that, for example, your speeding ticket was amended to a cell phone ticket. Obviously, prosecutors and judges can see the same thing in their system.

Our main objective is to prevent increase of your auto insurance rates because non-moving violations do not get reported to the DOL.

Most importantly, the standard of proof for traffic matters is a preponderance of the evidence (i.e., the judge has to believe prosecution 0.00000001% more than you). Thus, we have extremely rarely seen the situation where the judge believed a defendant's statement more than what is stated in the police report. Thus, it is crucial to see "discovery" (which includes the police report and related documents that city/state must provide upon request).

In general, this is our approach to tickets:

1. Your ticket will have three options - pay, mitigate or contest. We normally advise the clients to contest the ticket. This option allows us to request the discovery (i.e., police report and related documents) to look for a technical issue to dismiss the ticket.
2. If we do not see a technical issue, we try to negotiate with the prosecutor amending your charge to a non-moving (thus, no effect on the car insurance).
3. If none of the above works, we would ask the court to defer the ticket. However, one can only use deferral in WA once per several years, not to mention that some tickets may not be deferred or that in some cases, deferral (even if available) may not be the best option. Mitigation is often the last resort. 

What is deferral in Washington State?

A judge has the discretion to defer (postpone) the reporting of a traffic violation to the Department of Licensing (DOL) if certain conditions are met. The judge may (but is not required to) defer the ticket for up to twelve (12) months on conditions deemed appropriate. However, the deferral may only be available once per 7 years, conditions of the deferral may include no traffic infractions or criminal traffic violations for twelve (12) months from the date the court enters the deferred finding, court costs of $150 (but in come courts, $125 or $200) for monitoring the person’s driving record may be imposed and if one fails to comply with conditions, the deferral is revoked. In some cases, you would be required to pay the original fine that appears on the ticket and the original violation will be reported to the DOL.

Below are the most common types of tickets: Speeding, Carpool - HOV, Equipment Violations, Failing to Stop at a Stop Sign, Failure to Yield, Failure to Signal, Illegal U-turn, Negligent Driving in the 2nd Degree, No Insurance, No Operating License on Person, Red Light (now often done via camera tickets).

What is an FTA?

If you do not go the hearing or do not respond to your ticket, you can get Failure To Appear (FTA). FTA will eventually lead to the notice of the license suspension. If you received one, we may be able to help you by filing a Motion to Show Cause to explain to the court why you have not responded to the ticket or failed to show up at your hearing. In such cases, we normally recommend that you pay the fine asap and fight the Motion to Show Cause in court. Once we win the Motion to Show Cause, we get a "shot" at dismissing your ticket (as if FTA never happened). If we win, you will get the money back from the court.

What do I do if I got the traffic ticket in the auto accident case?

While your insurance company might find out about the accident via you or third party, we suggest that you still fight the ticket even if you may be liable in whole or in part for the accident.   In theory, you want to avoid the "double hit" of your driving record (one hit from the accident and one hit from the ticket).  Remember that defending traffic tickets is more often than not a technical legal issue, thus it is possible to dismiss your ticket for driving too fast for the conditions but still be liable in part or in whole for the car accident. 

How do I get back my suspended license?

Do not confuse a notice to suspend the license sent by the DOL and the actual suspension by the DOL.   As per above, if you have an FTA, you will get a letter telling you that your driver's license may be suspended.   Now, if your license already has been suspended, you need to go through a formal process to get it back. 

Call now 425-644-5484.

DISCLAIMER: The information you obtain at this site is not and it, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. Consult an attorney for advice for your legal problem. Contacting our law office does not automatically create attorney-client relationship.