My son was returning home from freshman college year. It was lightly raining (hence the wreckless) and he was trying to get home to W-S, NC to see his brother’s school program. He was also cited for 89/65. He’s a good kid – no issues at school, full ride to college on academics. An immature mistake (and recognizably dangerous). He’s worried to death over this. Would this be a potentially good application of the Prayer For Judgement? Does that or should that be handled through an attorney?
Dear Stressed Mom: If his record is clean looking back three years, then, IF he can get the ticket reduced to 9 over (74/65) AND get the C&R tossed out, he will not see any insurance increase and only 3 license points (which, in this one isolated case, would not signify anything according to the NC Safe Driver Incentive Plan). Also IF the DA would agree to toss all the charges and give him an IE (improper equipment charge), there would be no insurance increase and no license points either, since it’s not even a moving violation. The same sort of “no insurance increase” result can also be achieved if the DA tosses one charge and the Judge allows a PJC on the other (you can use one PJC per household per three year period to avoid license and insurance points). So there are ways to deal with this. That being said, the challenge in this case may be that the speed (at least in Raleigh, where I practice) is rather high to expect a DA or Judge to allow this to happen without a little effort on your son’s part. Here, and again I can’t say in Surry Co., the DA would/may ask for community service (1 hr for every mph over limit) and an 8-hr online driving class AT A MINIMUM. There’s still a great possibility that (again, using Raleigh as my basis of understanding) the DA would take a hardline position and MAY not even want to do that. Sometimes they say “I’ll drop the speed if he pleads to C&R” which would probably not revoke his license but would drastically increase his insurance. Bottom line, due to the speed and the fact that he was also cited with C&R, he may benefit from a lawyer’s services. A good lawyer would know which judges are best, and which DA’s are best to work a deal with. Hope that helps!
