Manassas Speeding Ticket Lawyer
In Manassas, speeding offenses can be very serious because they can go from being a simple traffic infraction to a criminal charge. Luckily, a Manassas speeding ticket lawyer can help you understand the differences and navigate the legal system so that you are best prepared when you get your day in court. To learn more about what an experienced legal representative can do, consult with a Virginia speeding ticket lawyer today.
Advantages of A Manassas Speeding Ticket Lawyer
It is important to have an experienced Manassas speeding ticket lawyer because speeding tickets can be a really big deal even though they only affect your driving record and are not permanent. Sometimes if you have too many at once then your license will be suspended or your insurance rates can spike making driving un-affordable.
For this reason, it is often better to handle the tickets as they come because you can’t predict the future and you don’t know if you will be charged with a speeding ticket later down the road that would then be aggravated due to your previous speeding tickets. A good speeding ticket attorney can help you so that you don’t lose your driving privileges and you can handle everything before it snowballs into a bigger deal.
Speeding Offenses in Manassas
In Virginia, the basic types of speeding offenses are speeding and reckless driving. The difference between the two is that speeding is a traffic infraction whereas reckless driving is a criminal charge, which is a class 1 misdemeanor. An infraction only affects your driving record and punishment is typically a fine. In contrast, a criminal charge affects your driving record as well as your criminal record which is permanent, and there may be some jail time in addition to a fine.
Is An Appearance in Court Required?
In Manassas, it is not mandatory for people to appear in court to answer to a speeding ticket, whereas for reckless driving it is absolutely required that you appear. With that said, however, the best thing to do is to appear, because if you don’t appear for a speeding ticket it is equivalent to pleading guilty and accepting the consequences while throwing away the opportunity to contest the charges or negotiate the penalty.
Even if you are guilty, sometimes just appearing and having completed a driver improvement course or participated in some other proactive behaviors for your case can result in the judge being empathetic and dropping or reducing the charge. For reckless driving, if you don’t appear, you will be charged with ‘Failure to Appear’ which means there is an arrest warrant issued for you, and it results in a whole other criminal charge.
Is Reckless Driving a Speeding Ticket?
Reckless driving can be a type of speeding ticket. The charge of reckless driving encompasses speeding as well as a whole variety of other moving violations, such as driving with faulty brakes. If you are accused of reckless driving a Manassas reckless driving lawyer can help.
How Do Officers Prove Speeding?
In Virginia, the police officers commonly use specialized equipment such as LIDAR and RADAR and they also pace vehicles to match their speed in order to detect how fast they were going.
A Manassas Speeding Ticket Lawyer Can Help
The advantage of having an experienced Manassas speeding ticket lawyer is that you will have someone on your side familiar with the system, who can explain to you what the different steps are going to be, and what the different outcomes and options are that you have. It is very important to have somebody who can explain this to you because you don’t want to do anything to compromise your case.
Each case is slightly different so it is good to go with someone who has experience in a whole variety of similar cases, instead of trusting your friend who knows somebody who got off or who got convicted in one case that may be vastly different from your case. Each court is a little bit different with different rules and different ways of doing things and an experienced Virginia speeding ticket lawyer can help you go through seamlessly to get the best results possible for your case.