Traffic & Speeding Ticket Lawyers

Oh, no! You've been pulled over and you've gotten a ticket! When you are stopped by an officer, it usually happens when traffic was horrible or your hectic day has compromised your usually safe driving routines. This traffic stop only adds to your anxiety and frustration. We hoped you remained calm, and if not polite, you hopefully at least maintained a modicum of control over your emotions.

It might be tempting to ignore it, but that is a big mistake. There is important information on the ticket. Normally, you are urged to respond, by selecting one of the options on the back of the ticket and mail or bring it to the court no more than 15 days after the violation occurred. If you fail to respond within the 15 days, the Department of Licensing will be contacted, your license may be suspended and you will receive additional penalties. Read the ticket carefully. If you have lost your copy of the infraction, please go to the court in person to request a copy. If you wait too long, it may be more time intensive and expensive to fix.

Maybe you even think you could just pay it to get it out of the way. But if you pay it, you won't be done. If you have received a notice of infraction or citation for a traffic infraction in Washington State, your insurance rates may rise hundreds of dollars the next three years. A common estimate is that a simple speeding ticket will end up costing a driver over $1,000 over the next three years, due entirely to insurance premium hikes due to a citation.

And it's a black mark on your driving record. If you apply for a job that needs a perfect driving record, you may be looked over for someone else who hired us to help them. It's even worse if you drive for a living. If you are a commercial driver’s license (CDL) holder and you’ve received a notice of infraction or citation, your job could be at stake. Under State law, CDL holders are not eligible for deferred findings, and their CDL requires a clean record. Further, most trucking companies have their own internal standards for their CDL holder drivers, and these can be stricter than the State’s regulations. It is imperative that you seek an experienced and knowledgeable attorney to help you keep your record clean and keep your job.

Do you have more than one ticket?

That gets expensive and painful fast. Not only will you pay more for fines and watch your insurance rates go up dramatically, every time you are pulled over, the police officer will pull up your driving record. If you thought it was tough to get a warning before, try getting one when you have several violations. The officer will be convinced you are a bad driver and will happily write you another ticket.

You could try and reduce it yourself, but we have the advantage of having established relationships with prosecutors and judges that ease the process. We aren't getting any special breaks, but we know the questions to ask and arguments to make to most effectively take care of your ticket. A large portion of RCW 46.61 is devoted entirely to traffic infractions, and each infraction has its own rules, requirements, and evidential value. Traffic infractions are civil, not criminal in nature. This is important because the State or City need only prove its case by a preponderance of the evidence, or “more likely than not.” If the judge believes only that it’s more likely than not that you committed the infraction, you lose. We know the technicalities, the law and the courts, our traffic ticket attorneys also know which citations they can’t get dismissed, if a ticket is perfect our traffic ticket attorneys plea (bargain). In most cases, our traffic ticket attorneys will go to court for you so you do not have to miss work or school and get your ticket dismissed or amended to something much less expensive in the long run. We offer a non-judgmental office. Our traffic attorneys want to hear your side. The violation system considers you guilty from the beginning. And while your innocence is crucial to you, for our traffic ticket attorneys, it is far more important to know who ticketed you and where. We will serve the court with discovery requests and seek to receive all the information about your case. The prosecutor has an obligation to provide that discovery because if he doesn't, your case will be dismissed.

How do we do it?

We focus on citation mistakes that may get your ticket dismissed. We focus on knowing the ins and outs of each county--what is important to that prosecutor and judge. Our traffic lawyers know the players, the economic forces, the emerging laws and the processes by which cases get resolved in their local traffic courts. A case may be dismissed outright if the issuing officer doesn’t show up as complaining witness, or if there is a bargain for a case dismissal in exchange for pleas on other non-moving violations, even if you end up paying the fine, your case won’t be recorded, which would set off that pile-on effect you’ve been dreading.

Once the ticket process starts, it enters a complex machinery of negotiation which is the norm. With a friendly, adversarial attitude, we push the state to look harder at your ticket. You're not just sitting by meekly and taking it, you are requiring them to look carefully and see whether this a case where they want to spend money trying a ticket, or whether they would like to just dismiss it to keep the costs down. Counties and cities ticket to increase their revenue, not spend it unnecessarily.

Hiring a traffic defense attorney does cost money, but could save you hundreds, if not thousands, by keeping infractions off your record.

Hiring a traffic defense attorney does cost money, but could save you hundreds, if not thousands, by keeping infractions off your record. Contact us today to find out how we can help you!