Accused drivers can employ a lot of different criminal defense strategies in order to fight a traffic ticket in court. Depending on the evidence that a police officer presents against you in court, you may want to try and argue that the alleged driving offense did, in fact, occur, but that the driving infraction was justified.
This strategy is an excellent traffic ticket defense technique because it does not involve refuting the officer’s statements or accounts. Rather, it seeks to provide an alternative explanation that reveals why circumstances required the specific driving infraction to happen.
For example, if you were issued a speeding citation, one argument that you could present is that you needed to temporarily speed in order to pass another driver that appeared to be endangering you. Perhaps you had to pass a car quickly because it looked like the driver was drunk and posing a threat to your safety. This defense might only work if the speeding was temporary.
Alternatively, you might try to explain that you had suddenly suffered a bout of dizziness or a medical emergency that resulted in you swerving in the road. This could explain a reason for an apparent reckless lane change. This defense, coupled with a driver immediately pulling his or her vehicle over in order to prevent passing out behind the wheel, would be one strategy of traffic citation defense that might work in certain circumstances.
Ultimately, every traffic citation will have different facts and circumstances surrounding it. Maryland drivers can discuss their traffic citations with a criminal defense lawyer to determine which legal strategies may be most appropriate to employ given their circumstances.
Source: FindLaw, “How to Fight Traffic Tickets, Five Strategies that Work,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017