Do you remember when you were a kid and got in trouble at school?  It seemed like we were always being threatened with action that would end up on our “permanent record.”  Personally, the finality of how that sounded scared me to the point that I would usually behave…for a while, at least.  Teachers have a way of making your “permanent record” sound like St. Peter’s taking notes.  Geez, one spitball and you’re branded with a “permanent record” until you go to college, at the very least!  Fortunately, once I got to college, I realized that I had a chance to wiggle out from under that “permanent record” because in college all that mattered was my GPA and LSAT score.

This was all before the internet and cloud storage, so these days, the permanent record is back – at least for drivers.  I am referring to the information stored in databases about your driving history as your permanent record.  Sadly, it’s always there, and although I can’t make it go away, as a traffic ticket attorney, I can help with what it may say about you.  That’s my job and I am quite good at what I do.  Here are a few things that may be helpful to you that I have learned over my years of experience in traffic ticket law.

About once a week, at least, someone will call me or come to my office with a citation in hand and say, “I haven’t had a traffic ticket in 20 years!” You can see the outrage on his or her face and that they expect me to respond with, “Oh, then it must be a mistake.  I’m sure they will just throw that traffic ticket right in the garbage.”  Now, not getting a traffic ticket in a long time is a great tool in helping me to represent you.  I can go to court and explain this to the judge, which often works in your favor.  This doesn’t, however, guarantee he is just going to dismiss your traffic ticket.

Even if this is your first traffic ticket or the first one you have gotten in decades, I have said it before and I will say it again – DO NOT PAY IT.  So many times, people have approached me and said, “Mr. Diamond, I only paid that one speeding ticket, and now it’s messing up my record.”  (There’s that word again!)  This is just one more major reason why you should hire a traffic ticket attorney.  I recommend Jason Diamond because I have heard that he is great at this kind of thing, but you are better off hiring any traffic ticket attorney than just paying the ticket.  If you just pay it, guess what?  You’ve got it!  It ends up on your “permanent record” and there is no college intervention – it’s there forever.  Twenty years from now, it’s still going to be there so, in that regard, it doesn’t matter if it been 2 years or 20 years since the last traffic ticket.

I think that some people misunderstand the system.  They think that because they pay a ticket and get points on their license, they only have to worry about it for three years.  This is not the case.  The points are only there for three years, but the fact that you got a ticket and paid it are there forever.  I know that really sucks, but a good traffic ticket attorney can help you avoid having the ticket show up on your permanent record or have it reflect in a way that it doesn’t cause you as many issues.

Hiring the right traffic ticket attorney to fight your traffic ticket may result in him getting the ticket dismissed; ergo it will not appear on your record.  Even without a dismissal, a traffic ticket attorney can help you avoid being adjudicated.  That means that there will be no points on your license and your insurance rates won’t go up.  As an additional advantage to not having points on your license, if you get another ticket, no points will show up on your record.  These things tend to compound, so judges will often look more favorably upon those who have a “clean” driving record.

So again, never just pay a traffic ticket because it will never go away, but a traffic ticket that we get dismissed is as though it never happened.  Our success rate speaks for itself so, give me a call at (954) 967-9888 for a free consultation and let’s see what we can do about keeping your “permanent record” clean.  St. Peter has enough on his plate.