traffic ticket, need advice, improper use of headlights

[Lloyd]

Bottom line, you violated that section of the NJ code and you don't have a valid excuse. There's no exception in the law the way it's written. You were within 500 feet of an oncoming vehicle and put your high beams on. Guilty. About all you can do is challenge it, hope he doesn't show up, and if he does say that you put them on very briefly because you thought you saw something in the road. Basically, you're guilty but if it truly was only for a very brief moment maybe you'll get a nice judge.

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]
About all you can do is challenge it, hope he doesn't show up, and if he does say that you put them on very briefly because you thought you saw something in the road. Basically, you're guilty but if it truly was only for a very brief moment maybe you'll get a nice judge.

[/ QUOTE ]
and chances are even in NJ a judge will be lenient. My father's a lawyer and the impression I get form him is that judges tend not to care about the little BS tickets. Especially with extenuating circumstances (in your case the phantom deer).

To all those recommending to contest it and hope the cop doesn't show up...Most departments these days schedule specific court days for their officers in advance and the officer has this schedule with him/her when they write a ticket. On those days the cop does nothing BUT court appearances, so, the chances the cop not showing are slim to none.

Contesting tickets is fine, but hoping the cop won't show up is NOT your best defense.

[Lloyd]

True. And not showing up doesn't look too good for the cop. But sometimes they don't. I'm not sure where you work but in California the date assigned on the citation is only for the arraignment. There's little control over when the trial date will be other than to ask for a change if it conflicts with a vacation schedule or the like. Not sure how Jersey operates.

[Lloyd]

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judges tend not to care about the little BS tickets.

[/ QUOTE ]
In California, traffic cases are heard by traffic commissioners so pretty much everything they hear could fall under your definition of a "little BS ticket". In this instance, the violation itself could certainly be dangerous. I'm sure we've all been driving down the street and have been temporarily blinded by some idiot with his high beams on. The only way this is different is that they were presumably on for only a very short period of time (to see if that was actually a "deer" in the road). So perhaps a judge will see that while there was a violation the OP was trying to ensure the safety of all by avoiding what might have been a huge beast in the road.

[mason55]

I am too lazy to do the research right now, but there were a few different cases like this in a few areas that I remember hearing about in the past few years. Do some research because all the cases I heard about were thrown out.