I was pulled over for speeding and I didnt have my license on me. I was written a ticket for “no valid license” when it should’ve been “failure to show license”.
I had a valid license at the time, just not on me. What is the difference between the two?
Just so no one is confused, Texas also has a DWLI (driving while license invalid) which means an expired license, and a DWLS (driving while license suspended) which is self explanatory.
To me, no valid license would imply the officer is claiming I never had one in the first place. Would I be right in this assumption?
If I’m right they should overturn that part right? I dont mind paying for the speeding although I’d like to have the whole ticket thrown out. He wrote me for 48 in a 45. I know there is not a “grace speed” like people claim but comeone…3 mph?
show up on the court date and explain it to the judge. you may get luckey. Is it worth the money to talk to an lawyer about it prior to going to court, if so do that.
That’s the problem, i received this ticket in 2007 and I swore I took care of it. I’m sure they hear that all the time, so regardless of that fact I just want to get the damn thing taken care of. They’re trying to say I owe $1100 over this bs.
I plan on talking to a lawyer tomorrow, I just wanted to know if anyone had any idea what I could be looking at or some experience.
If it’s a six year old ticket, you are probably screwed. You have a limited time in which to contest. This is not legal advice, I am not your attorney, I am not a lawyer at all, blah blah.
What court/jurisdiction is this in? I’m fairly knowledgeable about how it works here in Houston. Other jurisdictions, not so much. IANAL
Your best bet is to hire an attorney, it’ll probably cost you about what the ticket fines would cost. If you can’t afford an attorney, you can always just turn yourself in and plead not guilty, usually (at least, here in Houston) the ticket will be dismissed after a night in jail. I once had over $1100.00 in fines accumulated for about 5 different tickets. I didn’t have the money to pay the fines or hire an attorny to fight the charges. Turned my self in and spent about 36 hours in jail.
All of the charges were dismissed.
Win/win, I had the time to spare and got the charges dismissed without having to pay for an attorney, which meant that no convictions showed up on my driving record which would have raised my insurance rates, costing me yet more money. YRMV
Since the ticket was in 07 my rate shouldnt go up correct?
Or does it go by the date youre convicted, like in two weeks when I go to court???
Im going to be pissed if my insurance goes up from a ticket in 07.
Im in jefferson county, just east of you.
Edit: tickets only stay on your record for three years…so if it goes by the date I got the ticket im fine; if it goes bt the date i put my plea in im screwed.
Wouldn’t it be trivial to go the the local motor vehicle administration office and get a print out of your driving record back to 2006. This would show you had a valid license in effect in 2007.
Unless Texas works very differently from most other jurisdictions, you have already been convicted of the underlying infraction, because you didn’t challenge it.
Actually the cop did you a favor by writing the ticket as no valis license.
You were ghuilty of not having license in posession, you would have been convicted.
You were not guilty of having no valid license which you could demonstrate to the court and that ticket would have been dismissed.
I never understand how people can ‘forget’ to go to court.
JBDivmstr’s anecdotal story does not sound reasonable. For one he says “plead not guilty”. To what? As noted elsewhere you have already been convicted, that’s why you owe $1,100. For another, why would they void the penalties/fines already assessed against you? You already owe the money. And who dismisses these assessments? Nobody at the jail, you have to go to court because IMO no court is going to dismiss the penalties from an existing conviction unless someone asks it to do so. Finally, why would you want to spend a night in jail? A win-win situation? Nothing better to do than be jail?
This is easy. I’m a Texan with a valid license and got the exact same ticket.
All I had to do was show up for court and show the Judge my license. He dropped the case. This was many moods ago but I can’t imagine it would be any different now.
No sir, you are wrong. You have NOT “already been convicted”! The $1,100 is what it would cost you to plead guilty or no contest (basically the same, no contest just means that you aren’t contesting the charges and yet you’re still not pleading ‘guilty’) and pay the fines.
If you turn yourself in to the court after a warrant for failure to appear has been filed, while you’re incarcerated (usually the next morning) you go before a municipal judge and THEN you plead not guilty, or guilty/no contest. Approximately 90% of the time, (at least, in my experience and from the experiences of numerous other people that I know) if you plead ‘not guilty’ (and the LEO doesn’t show up for the hearing) the charges will be dismissed. If the LEO happens to show up for court, you plead no contest and the judge sentences you to ‘time served’. Which still saves you $1100 in fines, with the only downside being that you will have a conviction recorded on your driving record.
Which will make your insurance rates go up. :mad:
I don’t know about you, but I definitely do not make $30+ an hour. For that matter, at the time I wasn’t even employed. Seeing as how I had ‘time to spare’, so to speak, I considered it a bargain!
I didn’t have to scrape up $1100 to pay the fines and since the charges were dismissed, there were no convictions recorded on my driving record. Which would have increased my insurance rates.
