By: Rob Thomas, Carla Newcomer

If you receive a traffic ticket and you do not want to appear in Court,   you can request Deferral or if you are not eligible for Deferral you can request an Agreed Judgment to reduce the amount of the fine.   Deferral is an opportunity to pay an amount greater than the amount of the fine in order to keep any points off of your driving record.    In most cases as long as you do not receive another ticket in a set period of time this ticket is dismissed and the violation will not be on your driving record.  Every City, Town, and County has different requirements for Deferral.   If you are not eligible for Deferral you can request that the prosecutor reduce the fine and sometimes the violation itself, in an agreed judgment.   In either case you do not need to appear in Court.  

Hiring an Attorney to negotiate a deferral or an agreed judgment, keeps you from having to appear in front of a Judge, and often results in reduced fines and the violation in some cases.  The State sets a uniform Court Cost for each violation and this amount must be paid whether you go to Court or not and  is included in the amount paid in a  Deferral  or Agreed Judgment.      

The following are the points assessed for each violation.

 If you receive a ticket in Boone, Hamilton or Hendricks Counties, an Attorney in our office can assist you so that you do not need to appear in Court.   In the initial call to our office you will need to have the ticket in order to determine what Court or Jurisdiction the violation was received in and the violation.  It does not matter if the ticket was written by an Indiana State Police Officer   or a local Police Officer the matter is heard in the Court of the City or County in which the ticket was written.