I read an interesting article today on cleavland.com. It was about the cost of overtime incurred by police officers there because of people fighting traffic tickets.
"We've created a monster and we can't deal with it now," said one officer who earns lots of overtime in Municipal Court.
People who don't pay their fines and court costs in advance are supposed to attend a hearing soon after a ticket is issued. If they plead not guilty, a trial is scheduled and the officer who wrote the ticket is automatically summoned to court - usually on overtime.
To avoid the further expense of a trial in such cases, it's not unusual for prosecutors to reduce speeding charges to lesser violations that don't result in driver's-license points.
That, in turn, encourages violators to contest their tickets in hopes of getting a better deal. And that drives up the number of police subpoenas and the costs of court overtime.
That's why I advocate going in and fighting your ticket. They (the prosecutors) will probably give you a deal, because it costs them more to prosecute you for the ticket than the value of the ticket. It's worth it, especially if you are a student and don't have a job, but do have a lot of extra time to go in.
-Gary Milner, future ticket fighter
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