Police officers in the Wrightsville Beach, NC, area issue speeding tickets every day. While most speeding offenses are not technically crimes, they are violations of state law and are generally regarded as infractions. Some traffic violations and excessive speeding can qualify for misdemeanor charges, but most of the speeding cases in the Wrightsville Beach traffic court pertain to simple speeding violations.
If a police officer recently issued you a speeding ticket in the Wrightsville Beach area, it’s easy to assume that paying the fine and forgetting about the incident is the easiest solution. However, the reality is that your fine is only one of the penalties you could face depending on your driving record. Additionally, the economic toll your ticket could take is likely to far exceed the cost of your fine, and it is almost always worth fighting speeding tickets issued in Wrightsville Beach to avoid these consequences.
Christina Rivenbark & Associates can help you determine the best defenses you can use to fight the charges against you. The police officer may not have used appropriate methods to calculate your speed, and it is possible they may have failed in other responsibilities as well. Additionally, some police officers will not even appear in traffic court to defend the tickets they issue. Whatever your case entails, you are most likely to reach a positive outcome when you have a Wrightsville Beach speeding ticket attorney handling your case.
When you receive a speeding ticket from a police officer in North Carolina, the ticket will include instructions for paying the fine or contesting the ticket. If you decide to fight the speeding ticket, you will face a hearing in the traffic court, during which you must explain your side of the events in question. The officer who issued your ticket is likely to be there as well, and they will explain to the court how they established probable cause to conduct the traffic stop. They must also explain how they ascertained the driver’s speed to justify the ticket.
Your Wrightsville Beach speeding ticket attorney can help you determine the best options for fighting your speeding ticket. For example, you may need to challenge how the officer measured your speed, or you may need to cite other due process violations to have your case dropped and your speeding ticket canceled.
The penalties for a speeding ticket are likely to exceed the fine on the ticket, especially if the driver has a record of previous traffic offenses. Whenever a North Carolina driver is cited for a traffic violation and/or convicted of any traffic offense, they accumulate demerit points on their license that will drop off over time. However, if they collect too many points at once within a short time, they could have their driver’s license revoked.
Your insurance premium may also increase in response to you effectively pleading guilty to a speeding ticket by paying the fine. Every auto insurance policy is unique, but most include terms that require policyholders to consistently practice safe driving habits. When they fail to do so, maintaining insurance coverage can be difficult and expensive. These economic effects can persist for years; over time, this can easily amount to thousands more paid in insurance premiums.
Christina Rivenbark & Associates can help you prepare for your traffic court hearing to fight the ticket issued to you. Our team has helped many past clients overcome speeding tickets and avoid the associated fines, and we can put this experience to work for you. Contact us today and schedule a consultation with a Wrightsville Beach speeding ticket attorney you can trust to represent you.
Technically, you can contest a speeding ticket without an attorney. However, you have a much better chance of successfully having the ticket rescinded with experienced legal representation advising you. In addition, your attorney can potentially uncover defense options you hadn’t considered, and they will also know the best way of proving that you did not commit the speeding offense in question.
Most defense attorneys in the Wrightsville Beach area will bill their clients with an hourly rate. This means that the longer they spend working on a case, the more it costs the client. If you have concerns about the cost of legal counsel for your impending speeding ticket hearing, review a prospective attorney’s billing policy carefully before agreeing to their representation.
It’s possible to have your speeding offense reduced to a lighter violation, or you could contest the validity of the ticket based on the officer’s handling of your traffic stop. Some defendants will have little choice but to pay their fines and accept the resulting consequences, but if you believe you did not commit the speeding offense in question or if the officer who handled your arrest failed to follow due process, you will need an attorney’s assistance to hold them accountable for the damages they caused.
You will be able to consult your attorney at the outset of your case to determine whether you have grounds to contest your speeding ticket. If so, they can help you prepare your claim. They will represent you in traffic court and identify any weaknesses in the police officer’s arguments, and they can also call their method used to calculate your speed into question.
The attorneys at Christina Rivenbark & Associates want to help you avoid the often-overlooked penalties that a speeding ticket can carry. Paying the fine and forgetting about it may seem like a reasonable solution, but admitting fault can carry repercussions you hadn’t considered. Contact us today to schedule a consultation with our team if you’re ready to see how a Wrightsville Beach speeding ticket attorney can assist you in this difficult situation.