<p>Anyone have any experience with their child being required to show up in court for a speeding ticket? D was doing 95 in a 55 mile zone (I know – she’s already had the lecture from me – I am not happy about this at all).</p>
<p>I got one in NY once and the option was either to go to court or plead guilty and pay the fine by mail. I’ve never heard of being required to appear.</p>
<p>H just called me and said he called Delaware; she definitely has to appear and we should get a lawyer and they could throw her in jail for 30 days.</p>
<p>I don’t think his take on things is wholly accurate, but I’m trying to find out what is. I was on the Delaware court website and could not figure out exactly what their point system is – they refer to the drivers manual but I didn’t see a chart or anything. </p>
<p>I’m thinking this is what she should do: show up on time for the court date (and try not to get another ticket on the way over), be polite and respectful to the judge, admit her wrong doing (the police car was about 10 inches behind her when they clocked her speed), ask if there is an option for drivers ed to reduce the points, and offer to pay the fine.</p>
<p>95!!! I’m assuming that the rate of speed is why there is a court date. (I’ve only ever seen the pay-the-fine-by-mail thing myself.)</p>
<p>With jail time as a potential penalty, I think consulting a lawyer who has experience dealing with these things in DE is the way to go. (And make her pay for it.)</p>
<p>I don’t know much about this topic, but I found a PDF file that seems to outline the various penalties fairly clearly. After looking at it, I’d probably confer with an attorney before the court date. Pretty deep down in the document, I see a footnote that says a 1 year license suspension is the penalty for exceeding speeds of 90 mph (but please check it out yourself and see if you have the same interpretation). If it were just a fine, I’d probably do what you said . . .but if it involves a long term license suspension, I’d be more concerned.</p>
<p>The only reference I saw to jail time for speeding was if you are deemed to be “racing” . . .which sounds as though it could be the case if you are just flooring your car or spinning your wheels (as opposed to racing against another car).</p>
<p>I can’t seem to include a link to the PDF file, but if you google “excessive speeding Delaware”, it is the very first link entitled SPEED LAWS . . .JURISDICTION: DELAWARE</p>
<p>I know! I think the fastest I have ever gone is 78 for a brief stretch of road. Part of me wants her license to be suspended for a good long time. She’s grown up with her father talking about how fast he can drive – he brags about it – so maybe she thinks that’s the cool thing to do. He avoids tickets by using a radar detector but it doesn’t change the danger of it. You go that fast, there is just no time to respond to someone changing lanes suddenly.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the links – I’ve read through many of them and so far it seems very sure her license would be suspended for at least 1 month if not more. Plus points. I’m going to ask around for an attorney who handles these kinds of things. If her license is suspended, I would assume it happens right then and there so she better have a driver with her who can drive away from the court?</p>
<p>I admit that i have gotten speeding tickets.
The last one was on a speed trap on a local island with one main rd from north to south. The speed limit went from 50 to 35 with no discernible change in surroundings.
The cops pulled about six over at the same time, they seemed well rehearsed.</p>
<p>Specially when driving in unfamiliar areas it pays to look for speed traps. Although I would agree some speeds are going to get you pulled over no matter what.
Although I have also gone much faster on a straight freeway than I realized.</p>
<p>I doubt a lawyer can help much with a mandatory suspension. She should show up early to find the assigned court room. Be very contrite in talking to the prosecutor in hopes of an offer to plea down to the 25-29 level which allows for the drivers ed option. </p>
<p>Very unlikely, but possible is the cop doesn’t show up and case over.</p>
<p>Thank you – I hope that could work. She said she thought it was 65 as in other parts of Delaware and there weren’t any signs she saw that said otherwise. </p>
<p>I was hoping the cop wouldn’t show either, then I thought, I hope he/she does show up, because I want her to learn a lesson here. And I want this to be an example of what not to do for S’14 who just got his license.</p>
<p>I used to drive home in the middle of the night on a (mostly) deserted stretch of interstate highway and I would routinely do some “speed runs” and I figured out all by myself without having an accident or a close call that I was overdriving my headlights and aside from all the endless possibilities that I couldn’t even think of, at that speed a deer crossing the highway would be a major problem, so I just stopped doing it. And I never bragged about it to my kids.</p>
<p>Driving 95 in a 55 mph zone is serious business, and Delaware takes it seriously with mandatory license suspensions. Delaware can’t actually suspend an out-of-state license; but it can suspend the licensee’s privileges of operating a motor vehicle in Delaware, and it can report the offense to your own state’s DMV, which might or might not suspend the license, depending on what your state’s law provides. </p>
<p>In Delaware, the penalty for driving 95 in a 55 mph zone is a mandatory license suspension of 4 months (1 month for the first 25 mph over the limit, and an additional month for each additional 5 miles over the limit, so 4 months for 40 mph over the limit). That’s a pretty stiff penalty, which is the reason for the court date: due process and all. I think jail time would arise only if your daughter blows off the court date, in which case they’d probably issue a warrant for her arrest. Failure to answer a court summons in another state is also grounds for license suspension in most states, so potentially your state DMV could suspend her license if she fails to show up.</p>
<p>Hiring a local lawyer might at least allow said lawyer to try to postpone the court date until a time most convenient for your daughter. Seems pretty likely a license suspension is coming, however.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not much of an excuse. The mandatory penalty for driving 95 in a 65 mph zone in Delaware would be 2 months suspension. “I thought I was driving only 30 mph over the speed limit” is a little like saying, “Well, I thought it was only felonious assault, I didn’t know it would kill him,” i.e., I knew I was breaking the law in a serious way, I just didn’t realize how serious. Not likely to evince much sympathy.</p>
<p>If it were my daughter, I’d not only hope she gets the suspension, I’d make her pay for the lawyer. And the increased car insurance rate, if that’s on your nickel.</p>
<p>Not to make light of this, but I have never been able to get up to that speed with all the traffic backups and toll booths in Delaware. I think you are getting good advice here.</p>
<p>Have you seen the ticket? Are you sure it only says speeding? Many states require jail time for that level of speeding. If it only says speeding, she is very very lucky.</p>
<p>D’s best friend’s mom is a lawyer and they have a beach house in Delaware so were going to start there to find an attorney. This is absolutely the last thing I needed right now, financially (and emotionally). But, trying to be positive, at least she or anyone else wasn’t hurt, and I hope she’ll learn from this.</p>
That’s what to focus on right now for you - thank goodness she was actually caught and received a ticket rather than got into an accident at that speed and killed herself and/or others. Don’t forget that she got ‘caught’ this time but she likely has done this driving greatly over the speed limit many other times before getting caught. She’s actually quite lucky this happened as are you. I think you should embrace this as an opportunity for her behavior to be modified and do a bit of rejoicing (I’m saying this as someone who did my share of stupid driving things when I was young).</p>
<p>It doesn’t help that me and H are on different paths, so to speak (that’s probably the best PG-13 euphemism I can muster right now). D told him about a friend who was busted for using a fake ID to buy booze for herself and others. H was indignant. “She’s 18! Why is the government getting involved?”</p>
<p>When I told him the penalties for D’s speeding could be severe, he said “that’s Draconian!”</p>
<p>Get a lawyer right away.
When S1 was a college soph. he got a speeding ticket on the interstate for going 85 in a 65 zone. He was midway between home and college.
We told him he needed to handle it. He went online and hired a lawyer in the rural county in which he was pulled (so he would be familiar w/ the courthouse/cops/judges).</p>
<p>The ticket said S1 had to appear on the court date (exam week at college) but the lawyer got him out of that. S never laid eyes on the lawyer in person. Lawyer appeared on his behalf and got the charges knocked down so he didn’t lose his license or have to pay extra on his insurance.<br>
I’d like to say it was his last speeding ticket but he did get one more the year he finished college.</p>