How to Defend Yourself in Court Against a Moving Violation

The law does offer you at least some means of defense against traffic charges.

At some point, you may face charges of having violated traffic regulations. You may be innocent of the charges against you, or you may have committed a real violation, perhaps irresponsible or perhaps simply because of a lack of any other alternative. In either case though, you will need enough grasp of traffic regulation to defend yourself in court. Traffic laws vary from state to state, and so you will need to check those in the location of your ticket. However, a little general information may help you in developing your case.

Instructions

1. Challenge the reasonability of the ticketing officer's assumption of your violation prior to giving you the ticket. In some states, in order to minimize traffic difficulties because of the stopping of cars, police officers must demonstrate a realistic reason for stopping a car even in the event of that car's driver having actually violated traffic regulations. In the face of conclusive evidence of your guilt, challenging the ticketing officer for having had no reason to assume you to have violated traffic law may even work as a defense.

2. Challenge the immediacy of any secondary officer's response to a radio report from another officer on your speed. At least some states give officers only a limited amount of time to ticket an offense reported by another officer, and if a ticketing officer stopped you after that time limit, that may provide you with a defense.

3. Provide doctor's orders to take alcohol or any other drug found in your system, if applicable. Some states simply outlaw driving with alcohol, an illegal substance or any mind-altering metabolite in your blood, and so this may be your only defense.

4. Inform the court of any unforeseen driving obstructions encountered after beginning a maneuver with your car. The law of some states specifically forbids starting a maneuver without the correct conditions to complete it, but it obviously cannot expect a driver to predict unforeseen circumstance. Citing a change in such circumstance may, therefore, provide you with a defense.

5. Inform the court of the location of any trolley tracks near to your car at the time of your violation. The law in Ohio, for example, sees such a condition as a mitigating factor in hazardous driving.

6. Repeat any orders from law enforcement ordering you to perform the maneuver resulting in your ticket. This is an unlikely defense, of course, and your having received a ticket from just such a police officer will probably cause the court to doubt it. However, the law does recognize obedience to an order from the police as a defense.

7. Inform the court of the location of any police checkpoints near to the location of your offense. The laws of some states prevent the police from issuing tickets for an offense from a checkpoint established to measure the frequency of that offense or to discourage the public from committing it. A ticket from such a checkpoint may therefore be unenforceable.

8. Inform the court of any absence of train warning lights or any inaction of those lights or the swing arm, if ticketed for illegally crossing a set of train tracks. Under the laws of many states, you only have to stop before train tracks during the approach of a train, and the absence of these signals for the trains approach would permit you to claim a lack of adequate reason to so so. Of course, this defense will not work for any violation at a railroad crossing with a sign mandating drivers to stop.

9. Inform the court of any problems with your hearing, if ticketed for wearing an earphone-style hearing aid. In Ohio, this is the only legal defense for wearing earphones other than their use in radio communication between police officers, road maintenance workers and others with a clear need for such.

10. If ticketed for not having your child in an adequate protective restraint, inform the court of your child's age and weight. In some states, a child too large or heavy for normal restraints does not have to use them.

Tips & Warnings

• Never present any of these defenses falsely to a court.

References

• LAWriter: Arrest of Driver Based on Radar
• LAWriter: Operating a Vehicle under the Influence
• LAWriter: Secondary Traffic Offense
• LAWriter: Earphone or Earplug Prohibited on Drivers
• LAWriter: Child Restraint Systems
• LAWriter: Obstruction Intersections

Resources

• LAWriter: Stopping at a Railroad Crossing
• LAWriter: Stop Signs at Rail Crossings and Highways
• LAWriter: Passing Street Car on Left
• LAWriter: Starting and Backing Vehicles
• LAWriter: Turn and Stop Signals
• LAWriter: Slow Speed