A day in court

A couple of weeks ago I received a summons to appear in traffic court.  The woman who caused my car accident was fighting her ticket and all of us involved had to show up to testify.  So yesterday I trekked downtown to the courthouse to do my civic duty.

Step one was to get through security to get into the building.  I beeped, of course.   But my underwire bra wasn’t considered a weapon, so a few moments with the wand and I was ready to go in.  I waited with about 20 other people in a long, narrow hallway with bench seating for a dozen.  The people involved in my accident clustered together, including the woman at whose ticket was the reason for the occasion.  At precisely 1:30 we were ushered into a small room with benches like church pews for seating.  A young man, maybe 25, stood up and said he was from the prosecutor’s office and that each person fighting a ticket would be given two options: to mitigate it and automatically get the fine reduced, or appear before the judge and, if found guilty, be required to pay the full fine plus court costs.

Then he called all the witnesses to come forward.  We formed a line and one at a time gave him our stories, after which he signed our summons letters and told us to wait until he dismissed us.  After we had all filed through the line and sat back down, he called ticketees to come forward.  I knew from our pre-court discussions that Lisa (driver at fault) was fighting on the grounds that she was distracted by pedestrians, and that perhaps her brake cable had rusted through, making her unable to stop.  Her goal was to get her fine reduced and possibly the ticket rewritten to something that wouldn’t impact her insurance as much.  After a brief discussion with her boyfriend seated beside me, she decided to mitigate and get her fine reduced from $175 to $100.  After her meeting with the prosecutor, he announced that the witnesses in her case were allowed to leave.  Grand total of time involved:  1 hour 50 minutes, including the drive.

Final step was to locate the Public Safety Building and turn in my signed summons at the Municipal Court window.  In exchange for showing up I will be mailed a check for $10 plus a small amount for the 28 miles I drove round trip to get to the hearing.  I can expect the money to arrive in about a month.

What I learned is this: if it’s in town and you don’t have to travel to do it, always fight your ticket.  Just showing up guarantees you’ll save money on the ticket, and probably on your auto insurance as well.  But be prepared for any witnesses to be very annoyed with you.

Good to know.

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