[Saxon]

Two things. Google is not the ideal search engine, as results are influenced by the ability of some people to pay and boost their sites. Google is rich and you don’t pay to search, so where is the money coming from…

The other is about traffic tickets. In my old jurisdiction in Canada, the fine is automatically the maximum, but the judge has discretion to reduce it. A common strategy was to contest and hope the cop did not show up. If he does not, you instantly win, as there is no evidence to counter your testimony. Cops are only given so much time in court, the rest of the time is on the street. Very few tickets are actually contested, so this makes sense. Parking tickets never get defended by the cops, as it is just not a good use of resources.

If the cop shows up, you plead guilty, since the court will normally trust the cop more than you. Then you ask the consideration of the court to reduce the fine because you are a poor student, unemployed or whatever applies to you. Typically the fines are cut in half. If you fight and “waste the judges time”, you typically get hit with the full amount. However, if you really feel you must fight, quickly make your argument, like you have in the previous post, make your appeal for leniency and sit down. Don’t make the judge think you are wasting time or annoy them. Short and to the point, then let them move on to the other things in their day.

When you think about it, the judge really doesn’t see your moving violation as a big deal, one way or the other. Even if you were done wrong, it does not compare to a child abuse case or police brutality case, so don’t expect a lot of sympathy or time. They are busy, so respect that and you are more likely to get consideration from them.

In Atrocities case, it was the Trooper who wasted the judges time and got the tongue lashing. The judge didn’t even give time to read the law out loud, he read it himself to speed things up. Well done Mr. Christopher!

As for my current juristiction, you have to go to court for every ticket; there is no option of paying the maximum fine. However, they don't have speed guns, so speeding tickets are not a common problem...