Bicycle Austin forum

ch3ster

Member

Registered: 2012-08-29

Posts: 11

Citation...

APD gave me a Citation for: "NMV - Unsafe Turn Or Movement" after I was hit by a car from behind.
Ride to ER, long night there followed by weeks of soreness. Bicycle helmet functioned well as intended.  Attorney Brad Houston was very generous with his time, he could not find an accident report filed.
I'm trying to choose:  (1) "$135/Bicycle Safety Cousre[sic]/90days deferred" or, (2) going to trial.
"Appearance Docket" is 7/3/23, I'm interested in an informed opinion(s).

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,455

Website

Re: Citation...

Ouch.  That's insult to injury, literally.

The system is hostile to bicyclists, as we've seen from experiences with police and the courts.  So I wouldn't be optimistic about fighting it.  Of course, hiring Mr. Houston would cost more than the safety course.  Since you're thinking of fighting, how strong is your case?  Do you have evidence / witness(es)?

dougmc

Administrator

Registered: 2008-06-01

Posts: 623

Re: Citation...

Mr Houston does civil work, mostly personal injury.  I tend to doubt he takes traffic ticket cases at all.

(That said, he did a great job on my own personal injury case five years ago.)

There are traffic law lawyers who take traffic ticket cases and run them assembly-line style, and their costs tend to be comparable to that of a traffic ticket, but ... it still doesn't save money -- even if you win, which is still not guaranteed, unless you're in a case where the ticket will cost you more (like because of a CDL or something?)

If you think you can make a good case yourself (without a lawyer) for not having broken the law, and taking a day off to do this is worth a chance, it's worth a try, and you can also try to make a deal with the prosecutor first rather than going to trial at all, and if your evidence is good they'll just throw it out there.

Otherwise, I'd suggest the $135 or just paying the fine, whatever it is -- low-level criminal courts (including traffic tickets) tend to not be too fair to those accused unless they spend way more than the fine on lawyers, so the winning move tends to be to just pay and move on.