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I got royally effed on one of those tickets in Moorestown. I drove a whole whopping 50 feet in the shoulder to get to my turn, it just happened that the 50 feet took me past a cop car. You are right that it is a 4 point ticket and that will stick with you for awhile. I made the horrible choice of not fighting it as my wife was giving birth right around the court date.
I have fought several tickets in the past and always had good results. The lawyer recommendation is a good one if you aren't confident in the process. Here are the steps:
1. Call the court number on the back of the ticket and enter a plea of not guilty, this schedules you for court.
2. Show up early for court and find where the prosecutor is holding meetings before court and get in line.
3. Explain what happened to the prosecutor, answer his questions and try to look sorry.
4. There is a 99% chance you will be offered the option of pleading "Unsafe Operation". You can use this plea twice in five years and it exists to let prosecutors and judges get money for the town while not levying points. The penalty itself carries a fine between $50 and $150 for a first offense and $100 and $250 for a second offense plus a $250 surcharge if it's being plead in place of another offense. They will also levy a $35 court fee on top of this.
5. Agree to plead guilty to the amended charge and go sit down in the court room.
6. The judge will call you up and ask if you plead guilty to the amended charge. You plead guilty and he bangs the gavel and levies the fine.
7. Head over to the clerks office where you need to pay the fine in full or make arrangements to pay. If this is your first time, figure you will end up owing between $335 and $435 (fine+surcharge+court fees) in fines. This will result in no points and no moving violations on your record.
This is pretty much the best you can hope for in most cases on your own. You could offer to plead guilty to a cell phone violation which carries no points, but has a $130 fine. A lot of prosecutors will go for this as the town gets pretty much the same money as the $250 surcharge on Unsafe Operation is paid to the state, not the town. If it were me, I would offer to plead guilty to a cell phone violation and go from there.
A lawyer would have a better chance of getting you a cell phone violation, but you have to weigh that against how much the lawyer will charge. Most around here charge $100-$150 to represent you and there is no guarantee that they will be able to get the cell phone charge versus unsafe operation. The worst case is hiring the lawyer and still getting unsafe operation as you pretty much just threw your money away.
Evesham traffic court is a scam, as are the drug addict police officers. They will nab you for turning right off Route 73 using the "shoulder" (which should really be a turn lane) where just about any other part of NJ would consider it a perfectly acceptable turn. Good luck fighting it, in NJ you have to make multiple appearances to contest a ticket. Just another way this state is screwing the little guy. I ended up paying the ticket since I am an out-of-state resident and the points do not show up on my out of state license. ********* NJ.
If you don't want the points, you will have to go to court and spend a few hundred.
There are stretches of road around Moorestown and Evesham that they sit to catch people driving on the shoulder or being on the shoulder lane too early for turning. This is especially true during traffic hour. I was pulled over once right by the B&N heading to the store. I was giving a warning for going on the should lane too early to make a turn into the store.
I do have a somewhat local lawyer who probably won't charge me too much. I'll have to give him a call tomorrow. I also just noticed the court date on the ticket is when I will be on vacation. I must have some bad mojo going on.
Talk about timing. My lawyer literally called me as soon as I hit post. He pretty much said no problem with the points and it will cost me about $400 all in. You have to love the justice system.
You can call and ask for a continuance without even hiring a lawyer. Hiring a lawyer for a traffic ticket is a waste of money. You'd be better off just paying the ticket and dealing with the points, unless your license is in jeopardy.
You can call and ask for a continuance without even hiring a lawyer. Hiring a lawyer for a traffic ticket is a waste of money. You'd be better off just paying the ticket and dealing with the points, unless your license is in jeopardy.
Talk about timing. My lawyer literally called me as soon as I hit post. He pretty much said no problem with the points and it will cost me about $400 all in. You have to love the justice system.
It sounds like he is planning to take the "Unsafe Operation" route. If you talk to him again, see if he is willing to try for a cell phone violation instead. It should save you at least $250 or so. I can't think of any compelling reason why you wouldn't want to try that route first.
The one major perk of having a lawyer is that the attorney's get to speak to the prosecutor first (and cut the line) and the judge also calls their cases first. You can easily go from spending 2+ hours in traffic court to spending 20 minutes.
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