Author: jeffreyhoward

The county my office is in, and the county I live in, is Orange County, North Carolina.  Right next to that fine county, just to the west of us, is another fine county – Alamance.  The county seat is Graham, but like my county, the biggest town isn’t the county seat; Burlington is the biggest town in Alamance, but court happens in Graham.  Go figure.

If you get a ticket in this Alamance County, you’re going to be asked to show up in court in either Graham.  What do you do?

Well, you can always show up and see what happens.  From previous posts you’ve seen how an attorney might help you, but just as a reminder, hiring an attorney will mean:

• You don’t have to go to court (assuming it’s just a speeding ticket or other waivable offense),
• you don’t have to miss work and income (which might be a whole day!),
• you don’t have to deal with the uncertainty and stress of being in court,
• you get the benefit of having an attorney who knows what kind of reduction would be best for you given your charges and your driving record.

What are those benefits worth?  In my opinion, every penny you pay for them, generally.

Why waste your valuable time handling your own ticket?

Alamance County policies are a bit different from Orange and Chatham.   If you have a speeding ticket under 20 mph over the limit and a clean driving record, we can normally get it reduced to a 9 over, which won’t get you any insurance points as long as your record stays clean for three years.  The DA does not offer improper equipment reductions, so that’s not an option in this county (nor in Wake County, while you’re asking).

If your speeding ticket is worse than that, your need for an attorney is probably greater, as you’ll want to get the best reduction possible in light of the DMV/insurance point consequences, and that will require a thorough and knowledgeable reading of your driving record, something you probably just don’t know how to do because you don’t have the training.  That’s not anything negative about you, it’s just a skillset you don’t have.  I can’t dunk, and I’m OK with that, so it’s sort of the same thing. So you should call an attorney and see what you should expect.

If you have an Alamance County North Carolina speeding ticket call and attorney.  Call me!  919-929-2992.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130416/NEWS01/304160055/Wrongful-death-lawsuit-filed-behalf-4-Wisconsin-residents-killed-65-crash

I recently came across a conversation on FB wherein someone was attempting to differentiate between “justice and gain”  She said that justice had to do with enforcing contracts or rights, essentially, but personal injury claims were all about gain.  She went on to say that people should just learn that “bad things happen” and should get over it.

I would invite her to read the story at the link above.  Would it be all about gain if someone made this company – who is allowing its drivers to drive in excess of the legal time allowed – pay to help compensate this family’s heirs for the loss of their support system, for the college educations that won’t be paid for, the graduations that won’t be attended,  for the weddings that will be missed, the birthdays that won’t be celebrated, the memories that won’t be created.  In the end, isn’t this about enforcing rights, too?

For the person who thinks that these claims are all about gain, I hope that her family isn’t the next victim, or else she  may find out just how wrong she is.

The county my office is in, and the county I live in, is Orange County, North Carolina.  The county seat is Hillsborough, but the most famous town in the county is certainly Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina, the oldest state university in the country, which happens to have an OK sports team or two.

If you get a ticket in Orange County, you’re going to be asked to show up in court in either Hillsborough or Chapel Hill.  What do you do?

Well, you can always show up and see what happens.  Most adults are perfectly capable of navigating the system, but is that the wisest thing to do?  That depends…

By hiring an attorney to show up for you:

• You don’t have to go to court (assuming it’s just a speeding ticket or other waivable offense),
• you don’t have to miss work and income (which might be a whole day!),
• you don’t have to deal with the uncertainty and stress of being in court,
• you get the benefit of having an attorney who knows what kind of reduction would be best for you given your charges and your driving record.

What are those benefits worth?  In my opinion, every penny you pay for them, generally.

In Orange County if you have a speeding ticket under 20 mph over the limit and a clean driving record, we can normally get it reduced to a “non-moving violation” which won’t get you any DMV or insurance points.  Do you know if you can get that, how to ask for it, what it’s called?  If not, perhaps you should get an attorney.

If your speeding ticket is worse than that, your need for an attorney is probably greater, as you’ll want to get the best reduction possible in light of the DMV/insurance point consequences, and that will require a thorough and knowledgeable reading of your driving record, something you probably just don’t know how to do.  So you should call an attorney and see what you should expect.

If you have an Orange County North Carolina speeding ticket call an attorney.  Call me!  919-929-2992.

The answer is “almost never,” at least for most North Carolina speeding tickets.

Generally, you don’t want to pay off a speeding ticket because that means you are pleading guilty, and you’ll then get the DMV and insurance points associated with your charge.

The DMV points aren’t a huge deal if you have a good record.  They don’t hurt you until you get 12 in a three year period, then they will revoke your license. But if you have 11, nothing happens.

Insurance points are cumulative, though.  One point increases your auto insurance rates 30% for THREE YEARS.  Two points, 45%; Three points, 60%.  And it gets worse.  So just paying off a ticket/pleading guilty, isn’t normally a good idea.

The only time I would consider it would be under very certain circumstances:

___ you are charged with speeding 10 mph over the limit or less

___ you don’t have any moving violation convictions in the past three years

___ and you know for sure that appearing or having an attorney appear for you in court will not possibly get the matter reduced to a non-moving violation

___ and you know that if you are convicted of a moving violation in the next three years you’ll get those points as well as the insurance points on the one you paid off

Under those circumstances, it might make sense to pay off a speeding ticket.  But unless you can check all of those off, you probably don’t want to just pay it off.

For the best advice call me or another local traffic ticket attorney and we can normally give you a good idea as to what might be your best course of action.