i have a friend that got 2 tickets with in 18 months, and he is wondering if he can still take traffic school for his ticket?

both tickets were non-speeding. i think the 1st ticket was turning left on double yellow line, and the 2nd one was stopping in the clear zone in an intersection. i think he took traffic school for the 1st ticket. since he got his 2nd ticket with 18 months period, can he still (/does he still needs to) take traffic school?

 

You can take traffic school twice for up to 18 months, at least in Torrance

 

actually, you can take traffic school as many times as you want within however long you want.

sounds a little odd, but i finally learned something useful in all the traffic schools i've been to.

when processing a ticket, regardless of whether it's a moving violation or not, the clerk will ask you if you've been to traffic school within the last 18 months. if you say no, then they automatically suggest it to you and you're able to take it. if you say that you have, then they move right along and go to the amount of your fine.

if you say that you've already been to traffic school in the last 18 months, and they move on to the amount you have to pay for your ticket, then you can ask if you can take traffic school anyway, to which they should reply yes. technically speaking, according to the police officer that was teaching, if you got a speeding ticket every day of a calendar year, you can go to traffic school 365 times.

here's the catch:
your first visit to traffic school (or every 18 month cycle), you're only required to complete 8 hours of traffic school, and the cost of traffic school is 35 dollars. i believe is alleviates the fine a little bit too. upon completion, the infraction is completely stricken from your record, and your insurance doesn't go up, you don't receive any points on your record, blah blah blah.

if you go a second time within 18 months, or more than twice, then you are required to complete 12 hours. there aren't any 12 hour sessions, so you need to go to 1 and a half classes. the cost of traffic school is 50 bucks, or somewhere in that area. although the infraction isn't stricken from your driving record until the necessary time for clearance, you don't receive the points that you should be getting, which will not affect your insurance, which is why you should go to traffic school for every traffic infraction you receive. no points, no higher insurance, bingo.

your traffic ticket will still cost the same though. the 50 dollar class fee is much better than an increased insurance payment though.

hope that helped.

 

Wow... so the infraction stays on your DMV record but it doesn't count as a point on your insurance? I never knew this

 

Your friend has to appear in court for the second ticket and plead guilty. After pleading guilty he must request a 12-hour traffic school from the judge. Only the judge can grant the traffic school.

 

well, in agreeing to pay for an infraction and not contesting the ticket, you are already silently pleading guilty ^_^

and what i wrote was from a traffic school instructor. from personal experience, the west covina courthouse clerk granted me my second traffic school without having to appear in front of a judge. i got two speeding tickets in one week, so i'm sure the non-speeding tickets won't be much of an issue.

 

The clerk isn't the one granting traffic school. The judge, or a representative to the judge, has already made a decision and given the punishment (your fine plus traffic school optional). The judge is able, at his own discretion, to deny traffic school eligibility. In this case, even if you beg the clerk, she wouldn't be able to give you traffic school even if she wanted to. I know because two of my tickets were deemed ineligible for traffic school. That said, judges will usually allow traffic school attendance because the court gets extra money. If you're excessive though, you won't get it. Take it from a guy who's gotten five speeding tickets in four years and gotten out of every last one of them.


My suggestion: if you are granted traffic school, just accept the fine and take traffic school. Contesting it further means you give up your previously given right to traffic school, and you may not get it again. Of course that assumes you're going to lose, and trust me: you're going to lose in the end. Your only way of winning is if the citing officer doesn't show up at a physical trial. I'll keep my story short, but I had a clear case of an illegitimate speeding violation. I had absolute proof of it, and believe me, I really WASN'T speeding at all. I still lost and the judge took away my traffic school privilege originally granted to me. I had to write him a personal letter to get traffic school eligibility back.

 

That is quite unfortunate my friend. I've only attended traffic school for 1 of my 6 tickets before I got my s2k because they were all within 18 months and I had no idea I could go back.

After getting my 1st s2k and going to traffic school and finding out about repeat traffic school, I've never been denied traffic school. I've gone 5 times in 2004 and 4 times in 2007. (That's not a typo, I got three tickets in January of this year lol)

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In that case, yeah if you contest your ticket, you forfeit any right to attend traffic school. 99% of contested cases lose if the officer shows, because the burden of proof lies on the defendant and usually it's too much of a burden. You need absolute proof.

What I was saying was, when time comes to process your ticket, and you 1) show up to court on your appointed date to pay for it or 2) call by phone, you can ask whoever you're speaking to for traffic school and they are supposed to allow it. In the recent tickets that I've had, I've never been told that they would call back because they had to confer with the judge pending the eligibility of my infraction. They should and probably will give it to you if you ask, and you don't contest your ticket.

In the end, courts get money, that's all they really care about. You get your traffic school.

 

What I'm saying is that, even on your INITIAL call to the clerk, it is possible that the judge denied traffic school on your ticket. It's happened to be twice. The clerk does NOT get to make the decision to give you traffic school, they simply have the power to say,"OK" if your particular citation file says it's okay. That, again, is decided beforehand.

I wish I could find my old writeup. I had a long post about the exact steps to maximize your chances of saving your record.

 

i see. thanks for the info.

well i hope this helped out the OP cause he sure hasn't said anything yet haha.