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From personal experience, I have always gone to court whenever I have a ticket which can increase points on my license. A prosecutor will be assigned to you along with others, and he will drop the original fine to a lesser fine which does not include points amounting on your insurance. The catch is you have to pay the court fee and the new fine. However, you can ask the cashier's office to set up a payment plan. I had a $300 tickets one time and it took me a year to pay it!
99% of the time the only deal they offer is the "unsafe driving" plea which does cost over $400.
Rarely you can luck out on getting something like "obstructing traffic" which is about $75, no points and no record of any violation. You really have to "know someone" or luck out some other way to get that anymore.
Years ago cops and troopers would sometimes offer to write you up for something like not being able to find your insurance card, which was something negotiated before they went back to their car to write a ticket to the "policemen's ball".
My 21 year old agrees with you and filled me in too.
My 10 year old did some math - it's been ~9 years since my last moving violation (seems like yesterday), which was reduced to a seat belt ticket by the DA (which I think was $75 then).
What worked for me during the 20 years prior to the 9 years... is more like wishful thinking than the norm today. Everything you said hit home.
What I do recall is a family member being hit by insurance surcharge points after paying a ticket and I think she said she was paid an additional ~$200 per year for 3 years insurance premiums(?); not sure.
I think the point reduction system is just a money maker for the town. First they ask each if they are guilty or not guilty and the next thing you know is you are agreeing to a point reduction with a surcharge of $250.00. How does a surcharge make it ok to reduce points? What would the town do for revenue if not for the plea down for less points. If everyone took the points the town would be out a lot of money. When the mob had you pay for a privilege for an option the called it extortion.
From what I know it is something that a former Gov ole Jim Mc Grevious Mc Greevey started during his admin.
99.9% of the time in NJ the prostitutor (prosecutor) will offer you that. Some of them even greet you that way, meaning the first thing they say to you is "Hello, I can make that no points".
NJ only allows you to take that deal 2 times in 5 years. Then you have to wait another 5 years to be able to take it again. Otherwise if you take it 3 times in 5 years it comes up as 4 points on your license.
The other catch is the "revenuing" it costs about $485. Also your insurance co will see a "no points" unsafe driving violation and they may or may not bump your rates up accordingly. One insurance company noticed that and I just told them a pile of things,,,my car was parked, my cat broke its foot, my dog ate my homework, etc and they just left it alone.
Anyway it has been standard custom in NJ to offer this to everyone, they usually form a line before you go up to the judge and the prosecutor goes over each person's violations inside a private room where you play the "Lets Make a Deal" game. Sometimes you get to chose the curtain behind where Carol is standing, lol.
So, just to update everyone on the situation (I'm the OP): I went to court last night on my 2-point violation. Honestly, it should be criminal the way they do things. It is a complete money-making scheme. The place is packed, and it's not just traffic violations -- it's criminal violations as well -- I was in there with a guy that beat his girlfriend and threatened to kill her while swinging around a kitchen knife, and the judge even took cases via webcam from guys that were in their jail cells. It was like Dante's 10th Circle of Hell.
Here's the process:
You get there, line up, get frisked, then find a seat. A court officer then gives his spiel, followed by the judge giving his spiel -- which takes about 30-40 minutes in total. Then the judge lets anyone with an attorney be heard first. As he is hearing these cases, the prosecutor calls out anyone with a last name that begins with "a" to "c" to line up outside, in front of his office, to be heard.
Once the judge is finished with the people that hired attorneys, he then goes through the "a" to "c" people that actually received the chance to speak with the prosecutor.
Once the judge is finished with the "a" to "c" cases, he then leaves altogether, and the prosecutor takes his place in the front of the courtroom.
The prosecutor goes through the rest of the alphabet, from "c" to "z" - he calls your name, and, while you're still in your seat, before you even say "yes?" - he starts screaming your fine out in front of the entire courtroom; i.e. - Mr. Daniels - you have a 4-point ticket, I can reduce it to a 2-point ticket. Do you agree? Okay, come and sign this paper....Mr. Donovan - you have a 2-point ticket, I can reduce it to a 0-point ticket. Do you agree? Okay, come and sign this paper...and so on and so forth.
You don't even get to state your case or speak to him besides saying "yes" to his plea deal. Anyone that spoke up, or said that they wanted to speak with him about a certain issue, was immediately cut off mid-sentence, and he said something to the effect of "you want to speak about it, then come back next time - you'll get a notice in the mail of your trial date", and he kept it moving to the next person.
So, basically it was accept his plea, or come back for a trial -- no chance to speak to him AT ALL (unless you were lucky enough to have the last name between "a" and "c").
Once he went through every single case from "c" up to "z", which took over an hour, the judge then came back into the courtroom, and started the whole process over at "c". It took over another hour for them to get to my name, which ends in "p".
When my name was called, I stood up in front of him, he says "Mr _______, you spoke with the prosecutor and worked out a plea to reduce your fine to a 0-point violation. Do you understand that you are pleading guilty to this 0-point violation that carries a fine of x amount?" you say "yes", then he tells you to go line up outside the office to pay. I really wanted to say: "no, I didn't speak to him, I was just spoken to and told that this was the plea I had to accept, otherwise I was **** outta luck".
After you see the judge, you then wait (yet again) to pay, which takes another 30 minutes or so.
To have a 4-point reduced to a 2-point the fine was around $270 bucks (from what I could gather from the other people on line with me). And, to have a 2-point reduced to a 0-point, which is what I did, the fine was $439.
Not really sure how that math works out? Seems like the 4-point to 2-point reduction is a much better deal, b/c you would be avoiding the surcharge that NJ would have charged you each year for having over 3-points on your license.
Anyway -- in the end, I spent $439 to get rid of 2 points.
I'm kind of kicking myself b/c I could have paid the original $80 fine for the ticket, and then just paid for a defensive driving course to knock the 2-points off of my license. Not to mention I wouldn't have wasted 3 1/2 hours of my life and missed the first 2 periods of the Rangers/Devils game.
I guess it was a learning experience...don't get pulled over in Old Birdge.
Oh, and just so you know....if you get pulled over on Rte 9, they charge you a little over $100 MORE than the fines that I listed, just because it's Rte 9...no other reason...even the prosecutor admitted it was disgusting and made no sense -- so be careful on Rte 9.
It's a scam how they set these things up with no standards from town to town just to make money. Oh and they expect YOU to keep track of how many of these no pointers you get and when so you don't go over the 2 per 5 years provision which gives you 4 points automatically.
I like much better the way things are set up out in the Western USA states. Higher speed limits overall due to less congestion and traffic, got pulled over one time for going 95 in a 75, cop wrote it as 85 since i pulled over for him without him having to chase me, that's what he told me. Paid the fine but out there they have an online course for about $20 which you can take once a year to totally wipe out a ticket, so that for the extra $20 there is no record of it.
I know there are point reduction courses available in NJ but here it would be after you already record a violation which would get knocked down but still remain on your DL record.
I recently got a ticket for Failure to Stop or Yield getting onto Rte 9 in Old Bridge.
If I go to court, and I don't get to speak to a prosecutor, I don't have much of a defense, so I'm just a little worried.
Quote:
Originally Posted by focus282
I guess it was a learning experience...don't get pulled over in Old Birdge.
Hopefully, your learning experience also includes the fact that you really do need to yield to traffic or stop, depending on the signage.
Why is it that so many people who admit that they have committed traffic offenses subsequently manage to shift the blame away from themselves, and view the entire experience as an injustice to them, and/or revenue enhancement on the part of local government?
For that matter, why is it that I have been able to drive for 17 years without any traffic tickets whatsoever (and only 3 tickets in total over a period of 47 years), and have been able to drive without any accidents for 41 years, while so many folks get tickets on a regular basis and wind up in accidents every couple of years?
And, when I did receive those 3 tickets, I readily admitted my guilt, and paid the appropriate fine with no whining or attempts to shift blame.
Whatever happened to the concept of accepting blame when you have done something wrong?
Hmmmm....
Last edited by Retriever; 05-24-2012 at 05:17 PM..
yes... you would have been much happier mailing the $80 in and not getting yelled at. do you think that you will end up saving $359 in insurance or surcharges?
yes... you would have been much happier mailing the $80 in and not getting yelled at. do you think that you will end up saving $359 in insurance or surcharges?
there are countless threads posts in here outlining exactly what the OP should expect for his day in court. I dont get why folks just dont pay the fine. Especially people that have been driving with no violations for 10+ years. One 2 point ticket isnt going to jack your insurance rates. Pay the $80 and get on with your life.
OP got hosed for $500 and had to waste a vacation day to boot.
Anything is better than having points on your license. If you can afford the $400ish fee to fight it in court, do it. If you have points on your license the insurance may go up.
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Reduced points
