I Want to Fight My Ticket in Washington. Now What?

A speeding ticket, parking ticket, or other traffic ticket issued in Washington does more than put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It can cost you a lot of money. It isn’t just the fine associated with the ticket. There’s also the possibility of an increase in your insurance premium when your insurance carrier pulls your driving record to renew your auto policy. And since a ticket can stay on your record for three years, your insurance rate could stay sky high for a while.

Because of these potentially serious impacts, many people want to fight their ticket. We don’t blame them. In fact, that’s why we wrote this post: to help you understand how you can fight your ticket. First, you will learn how getting a ticket can affect your driving record. Then, you’ll learn things you should not say to the police when you get pulled over. It is not just a matter of general politeness (although being polite can sometimes result in being given a warning instead of a ticket). It is really a matter of ensuring that you do not admit to breaking a traffic law. And, no, merely signing the ticket when the officer asks you to do so is not an admission of guilt. You are just agreeing that you received a copy of the ticket.

Then, you’ll learn strategies to fight your ticket. While these strategies may work for you, they do require effort. Finally, you’ll learn about hiring a lawyer for traffic tickets. Some might think that it is frivolous to pay a lawyer to fight a traffic ticket but there are lots of reason to fight your ticket: It can help keep your insurance rates down. It can help keep your driving record clean. And that can be particularly important if you drive for a living or if you volunteer for an organization that relies on you as a driver to transport people or goods.

How Does a Ticket Affect My Driving Record in Washington?

In Washington, your driving record is a history of every traffic violation, conviction, accident, and departmental action related to you. A driving record may also be called an “abstract of driving record” or “ADR.” The main reason that people want to fight a ticket is that it affects their driving record.

There are four types of driving records in Washington. A full driving record lists every conviction, traffic violation, accident, license suspension, license revocation, license disqualification, ticket deferral, and failure to appear for all time. A full driving record can only be accessed by the named driver, lawyers, legal agencies and courts, governmental agencies, and their named agents. For example, you could order a copy of your driving record. The court or your lawyer could get a copy of your driving record if they had a reason to do so. You could not order a copy of your neighbor’s full driving record.

An insurance driving record is used by car and life insurance companies to decide if they want to offer you a policy or renew your policy. It can be used for commercial or noncommercial insurance policies. It can be accessed by the person named on the driving record, the insurance company, or the named agent of the insurance company. While your full driving record contains every driving infraction that you’ve ever been convicted of, the insurance type of driving record only gives a three-year history of convictions, traffic violations, accidents, and failures to appear. This is what insurance people mean when they say that infractions or other driving convictions “fall off” your record. Technically, they aren’t eliminated from your full driving record, they’re just not visible to insurance companies on your insurance driving record. Insurance companies use this driving record to determine whether they will insure you at all and what they will charge to insure you. Because Washington requires you to have car insurance to drive, and insurance companies use your insurance driving record to decide if they will insure you and how much they’ll charge, the number of committed tickets you have is important.

An employment driving record helps an employer, potential employer, or volunteer organization decide whether you should work or volunteer for them as a driver. It can only be accessed by the named driver, employers and their named agents, potential employers and their named agents, volunteer organizations, transit authorities, and school districts. It includes your entire driving record: convictions, traffic violations, accidents, license suspensions, license revocations, licenses disqualifications, deferred tickets, and failures to appear. Your employer, a potential employer, or a volunteer organization could decide that a ticket you’ve received makes you too big of a risk to drive on their behalf.

An alcohol and drug treatment driving record is only accessible by treatment agencies. It is a five-year driving history used by these agencies to help assess the needs of those participating in treatment plans.

If you receive too many tickets in Washington, the State Department of Licensing will suspend your driver’s license. According to the Department of Licensing, ”too many” is six moving violations in a 12-month timeframe or seven moving violating in a 24-month period. The suspension is for 60 days. Following the suspension, you will then be placed on one year of probation. If you get another ticket for a moving violation during your probation, your driver’s license is suspended for another 30 days and your one-year probation will start over.

Contesting a Red-Light Ticket in Washington

Washington began using red-light cameras, known as automated traffic safety cameras, to issue tickets in 2005. They are a common tool used throughout the state to help ensure that drivers follow the rules of the road. Because police can’t be everywhere at once, law enforcement agencies use automated traffic safety cameras to monitor dangerous intersections as well as school zones. Still, on a personal level, the letter you get in the mail letting you know that you broke the law in some way comes as a surprise. It can be scary because you suddenly owe money to the city. But if we’re fair, we can think of at least one time when we witnessed someone speeding or driving crazy and wondered where a police officer was, especially in a school zone.

Yet, there are hundreds of red-light cameras installed throughout Washington. According to The Seattle Times, the average amount of a red light camera ticket in Seattle is $136. There are also school bus cameras.

The good news is that because of the way that Washington law is written, you can a contest red light ticket provided that you are able to truthfully testify (because you will be under oath) that you were not the person driving the car at the time the ticket was issued. Under Washington’s red-light camera law, while using these cameras to catch drivers breaking traffic laws is legal, it is not legal to use the cameras to actually identify the driver of the vehicle. If someone else was in control of your car at the time the red-light camera issued the ticket, you are not responsible for the ticket.

Red-light cameras also create another concerning issue. In any other sort of traffic ticket case, criminal case, or civil case, the defendant has the right to confront witnesses. Red-light cameras can’t be confronted. They’re cameras. They can’t testify.

This is why camera tickets are considered non-moving violations in Washington and do not get committed to your driving record. That does not mean that you should let it go unpaid and totally ignore it. It is treated like a parking ticket. The State of Washington takes parking tickets seriously, especially if they go unpaid. If you have four or more unpaid parking tickets of any kind, the State of Washington may place a boot on your vehicle or they may tow and impound your vehicle. Certain cities, like Seattle, have an online vehicle lookup tool. It allows you to know how many unpaid parking tickets are associated with your vehicle, including unpaid red-light tickets. If you are not in Seattle, you can look up the municipal court for your city or town to check for unpaid parking tickets. You can find a full list of municipal courts for Washington through the Washington Courts website. But we at Off The Record don’t recommend fighting either your camera tickets or your parking tickets because they don’t directly affect your driving record – and therefore, they don’t affect your ability or cost to drive.

Three Things Not to Say When You Are Pulled Over or Given a Ticket

Believe it or not, fighting your ticket in Washington starts when you’re pulled over. Don’t worry – this definitely is not a lecture on how you should always be nice and not argue with the police. T hat’s a given. The general rule here is that you do not want to admit that you have done something that is against the law. Here are three things you should not say when you are pulled over or given a ticket.

Do not answer if the police ask if you know how fast you were going. If you tell the officer that you know you were speeding, you are admitting to breaking the law. If you say no, they will tell you that you were speeding. Then, you might argue and eventually say that you were going over the speed limit or that maybe you were going over the speed limit and didn’t realize it. Do not say anything that even comes close to sounding like, “Yes, Officer, I was or may have been speeding.”

Do not give a reason for whatever it is you were doing that got you pulled over. There is nothing you can say to the officer that will justify your actions. Their job is to enforce the law. While they do have a lot of discretion, they’ve heard it all. Of course, if they ask, you can tell them, but you do not need to volunteer anything.

Do not tell the officer you’re going to call your lawyer. This does not scare or intimidate the police into not giving you a ticket. And, yes, we know that this is technically covered under how you should be nice and not go out of your way to be argumentative. The officer is not the one who will hear your ticket. That is the job of the judge. The officer’s job is to decide whether the ticket should be written. If you do have a lawyer, the job of your lawyer is to argue your case in front of the judge…not to argue it with the officer. It’s a ticket – it isn’t a robbery or other serious criminal matter where you’ll be read your rights and questioned. Do not say things that will escalate a minor situation. Otherwise, you could go from a situation where you might have gotten a warning and end up getting a ticket.

Three Strategies to Fight Your Ticket in Washington

To fight your ticket in Washington, you must first contest it. To do this, check the box on the ticket that states you want to challenge any or all of the listed violations. Make at least two copies of the ticket. Mail the original ticket to the municipal court listed on the ticket. They will issue a court date to you. You need to keep one ticket for your records. This is particularly important if you plan to fight your ticket on your own. You will give the other copy of the ticket to your lawyer if you plan to hire one to help you. If you plan to fight your ticket on your own, you can use the following strategies to help you.

Request evidence from the prosecution. The request for evidence must be made in writing at least 14 days before your court date. You should request police reports, any notes the officer made related to your incident, certificate related to the radar gun used, and maintenance records for the radar gun used. The prosecutor must give you a copy of any of the evidence they plan to use within seven days of your court date. If they don’t, they cannot use it. Keep in mind that you could end up getting the evidence.

Determine if the ticket was filed on time by the officer who wrote the ticket. The officer who wrote the ticket has only five days to file it with the court. The five-day count begins on the day that the ticket is written. If it was not filed on time, the court is obligated to dismiss the ticket. Because the municipal court is a busy place, they do not have the time to keep up with comparing the filing dates to the dates the tickets are written. That is, they’re not going to tell you whether or not your ticket was filed timely. That’s on you to determine.

Subpoena the officer who wrote the ticket as well as any witnesses. The officer and any witnesses to the incident must be legally served within seven days of your court hearing. You must be able to provide proof of legal service. If you do provide proof of proper service and the officer does not show up to testify at your hearing, the court will likely dismiss the ticket.

Hiring a Lawyer for Traffic Tickets

You do not have to fight your traffic ticket on your own. Trying to fight it on your own may not work out the way that you’d hope. Hiring a lawyer for traffic tickets through Off the Record is beneficial for you because:

Image Credit: Jonathan Miske - CC BY-SA 2.0