Think twice before pleading guilty to your NY traffic ticket

Picture this: you’ve been on the road awhile, making good time because traffic isn’t bad on the Thruway, when you’re pulled over for speeding. The ticket shows you doing 90, but your license is clean and you figure you can just mail it in and be done with it. You’ve never even heard of the Hudson Valley town court you’d have to go to if you wanted to fight it, anyway, so pleading guilty and paying a fine will just be easier.

Someone called Selby Legal recently, after finding out the true cost of pleading guilty. The circumstances were different than the hypothetical above, but the consequences were similar:

• a fine of up to $300,

• six points (more than half allowable) on the license, which triggers

• a driver responsibility assessment, a hefty fee charged for the right to hold onto your license, and

• higher insurance premiums.

Pleading guilty is one way to address a traffic ticket, but if you decide later that it would have been less expensive to hire an experienced Hudson Valley traffic attorney who knows the local prosecutors and judges, it may be too late. I had to turn away that person who already pleaded guilty, because a judge isn’t likely to vacate your plea (let you change your mind) unless you had very good reason. I have gotten a guilty plea vacated when there was an issue of not understanding English, for example, but these cases are not common.

Are you willing to accept the consequences of a guilty plea to save yourself time, and maybe money? Is it worth it to get a free consultation before you make that decision? I hope so.