Up until recently I used to brag how I was never pulled over by the cops. That changed. We were on our way to bring Covrig home, 30 minutes late. Driving on I405, doing around 75 mph in a 60 zone. The freeway has 4 lanes in that area.
The interaction with the cop was extremely short and to the point. I started switching lanes as soon as I saw the police cruiser pulling over into traffic from the median of the freeway. When I was officially being stopped I was already in the right lane waiting for the cop-mobile to turn its lights on.
The nice cop (he was actually a she) informed me that I was speeding, asked for my drivers’ licence and car registration, walked back to the car, prepared the ticket and handed it over to us. Everything took around 5 minutes. We were informed that we’re supposed to pay 93$ for doing 5 mph over the speed limit.
Took the ticket and didn’t think about it for a couple of days. On it you are given 3 options: pay the fine, admit guilt but request a hearing to explain the circumstances (mitigation) of simply don’t admit guilt and go to court (contest).
Before going further, you should known that in the evergreen state of Washington, in King County, you can request what’s called a ticket deferral, meaning that the current ticket won’t go on record if you don’t get another ticket for 12 months. You can only get a deferral once every 7 years and it’s at the discretion of the judge (ie you might ask for it and not get it). The administrative fee associated with a deferral is 150$. The reason I would want to pay 150$ instead of 93$ is because of the car insurance. Once the insurance sees the ticket they will ask you for more money…
Now, a sane person would expect a deferral check box on the ticket and everything would be over on the spot. Not the case.
So what I actually ended up doing is checking the 3rd option (contesting the ticket). I got a court date that was roughly 3 months after I’ve filled in and mailed the ticket (even if you have to pay the ticket you get to keep the money for that period of time)
Another interesting thing about King Country is that you have the option to defend yourself over mail, if you accept that the judge’s ruling will be final. So I went with that and wrote a lovely letter in which I explained that I don’t believe that 65 in a 60 zone is such a big deal (not the actual words but that was the message) and that I would like to request a deferred finding. The judge granted this, I payed the 150$ and moved on (with a speed lower or equal to the posted speed limit).
So the 3 steps to get a deferral in King Country:
- Contest the speeding ticket and get a court date
- Fill in and mail the form that arrived with the court date asking for a deferral
- Pay the 150$ admin fee if the deferral was granted
For questions and status you can always call the court clerk.