Frequently Asked Questions
You have 30 days to elect to: (1) HIRE A LAWYER to fight your speeding ticket, (2) pay your ticket and GET POINTS; (3) elect driving school; or (4) plead not guilty yourself.
Points will be assessed against your license and your auto insurance rates are almost certain to increase. Your auto insurance may also be cancelled if you simply pay a traffic citation.
The State of Florida keeps track of the number of points on your license. If these points exceed a certain number within a certain period of time, your license will be suspended.
Under Florida law, you can make this election only five times in ten years. You cannot attend driving school within 12 months of your last attendance, when electing the driving school option, nor can you attend traffic school if you have a CDL license or you were going 30+ miles over the speed limit. Thus, before you go to driving school, you should call us.
You must complete a 4-hour, 8-hour or 12-hour class and provide proof of completion within the time constraints imposed by the Clerk of Court in the county where you receive the citation. A registration fee is required by the traffic school. Also, by electing driving school you may fail to take advantage of legal defenses that may result in the dismissal of your ticket or a finding of not guilty. So call us before you sign up for traffic school.
Yes. However, you will be required to take time off from work/school or your other activities to appear in court, possibly on more than one occasion. Even if you have a lot of free time and you are interested in representing yourself, there are many fine points of law and legal procedure with which you are probably unaware. Not knowing any one of these points can make the difference between having your ticket dismissed and being found guilty and getting points. It’s been said that “he who represents himself has a fool for a client”. So call Attorney Albert Quirantes before you go to court.
For non-criminal traffic infractions (such as speeding, running a red light, etc.), you will not be required to appear in court. We will appear for you. We use the law and legal procedures to attempt to get all tickets dismissed. Albert Quirantes has practiced law in Florida since 1988 and we have handled over 8,000 tickets to date. While we can’t guarantee your ticket will be dismissed, we can greatly increase the odds in your favor.
Submit your information for an online consultation by filling the quick contact form. An attorney will contact you as soon as possible. You can also call our office at 786-472-4707. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
A criminal traffic or misdemeanor charge requires a court appearance and carries with it criminal penalties which may include a fine and/or the possibility of a jail term. These include reckless driving, driving under the influence DUI or DWI, racing, etc. In many instances, the police will arrest you for these traffic criminal violations.
A civil traffic infraction is a non-criminal charge such as a speeding violation, that can usually be disposed of by payment of a civil penalty or an election to attend a defensive driving school course. A court appearance is not required, except in cases were the violation involves an accident, excessive speed, accident with serious bodily injury or fatality to another.
Generally, no. However, due to the mobility of cars, time does not permit a search warrant to be obtained. As a result, vigilant police are motivated to search suspicious automobiles. However, the police officer must have probable cause to believe that contraband is concealed somewhere. In essence, merely being stopped for speeding should not allow the officer to search your car; however, if the officer saw you throw an empty beer can out the window that may be sufficient probable cause to search your car. Or, if the officer smells marijuana as he approaches the car, he may have a reasonable suspicion to search. It is unreasonable to make a search of an automobile when the arrest is for a minor traffic violation (like speeding), as a subterfuge for a search for evidence of a serious crime. Yet, the many automobile exceptions are based on the lower expectation to the right of privacy in a car versus a home and the fact that cars are mobile and evidence can be more readily disposed.
The answer to whether you can drive immediately following an arrest for DUI in Florida is tricky. As a general rule, most people have 10 days from the date that their FL DUI citation is issued to drive. However, there are other factors that may negate this information. For example, was your license suspended for another reason? Has a Florida judge ordered you not to drive? We highly recommend that you immediately consult with a DUI Lawyer to get the correct answer as it applied to your individual case.
Absolutely not! Never consent to a search of your vehicle when you get pulled over for a DUI (driving under the influence). If the police want to search your car, they can do so with the aid of a trained dog which can search for drugs. The search of your vehicle is only valid IF they can get the dog to the scene within the same time period as it would take for the police to write a traffic ticket. This time has been determined by case law to be about 20 – 30 minutes. If it takes longer, which it usually does, then anything found as a result of the search will be suppressed and unavailable for the State to be used against you at your trial. If you are arrested for DUI, they will probably search your car after it’s towed for “inventory” purposes and any contrabad they find will be used against you, but never consent or it will be very difficult to suppress anything they find in a DUI or drug arrest.
A suspension will be entered against your driver’s license which could affect your insurance rates and subject you to additional penalties.
If you get a traffic ticket, a defense attorney can appear for you at a hearing, challenge the law enforcement officer to prove the infraction beyond a reasonable doubt, and minimize the damage to your driving record by requesting that no points be assessed by the court. As your ticket attorney, Mr. Quirantes may be able to get the court to allow you to take a driving school option when you are ineligible by statute, either due to a recent driving school election or because the maximum school allowance has been surpassed. We also plea bargain with the Judge for the best result.
Regardless of whether or not you are guilty of exceeding the speed limit by a few miles, it isn’t fair for you to have to pay $300 – $1,000 price tag! When you add the raised insurance premiums, you stand to lose a lot of money. It’s in your best financial interest to fight all traffic tickets… guilty or not!
If it’s for a moving violation such as speeding, ignoring it may result in a suspended license and/or a bench warrant being issued for your arrest. This is true even if you got the ticket outside of your home state.
Simply signing your speeding ticket is not an admission of guilt. You are only promising to show up in court at the assigned date and time. Your signature acts as your Own Recognizance bond. You should never refuse to sign a speeding ticket. In most places you can be arrested. Just sign the ticket and let us try to beat the ticket in court.
This is a very popular misconception. Although the ‘right’ mistakes on a ticket do have the power to have it dismissed, most mistakes don’t. Things like misspelled names, a slight variation of color written down for your vehicle, and similar mistakes will not have a bearing on the case. The right mistakes are what the court calls ‘fatal flaws’ on a ticket.
There is something called the Driver’s License Compact which is an agreement between states to share driving record information with one another. So, getting a ticket in Texas will more than likely show up in New York and vice versa. However, although that is the case, there is always the slight possibility that it won’t. There are currently 5 states which do not share information with the rest of the country. They are Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. So, if you get a ticket in one of these states, chances are your home state will not find out about it.
No. Even if you can “prove” your speedometer was faulty, the courts would accept it as mitigating circumstances at best. You will still be found guilty of the charge. Call us to try and beat the speeding ticket for you.
A moving violation occurs whenever a traffic law is violated by a vehicle in motion. Some examples of moving violations are speeding, running a stop sign or red light, and drunk driving. A non-moving violation, by contrast, is usually related to parking or faulty equipment. Examples include parking in front of a fire hydrant, parking in a no-parking zone, parking in front of an expired meter, and excessive muffler noise
If the violation took place within his jurisdiction the answer is yes. If the violation took place outside his jurisdiction the answer is less clear. There may be interagency agreements that allow police to exercise their authority outside their jurisdictions. There may also be state laws that allow inter-jurisdictional enforcement actions. One point to remember, the officer that observed the violation and issued the citation is the only person that can testify against you. The likelihood that an out-of-area officer would appear to testify against you at your trial is somewhat remote.
This is not required in any jurisdiction. Also, whether the officer allows you to see the speed reading has virtually no bearing on your case. So, why even ask?
Yes, you can travel the country from top to bottom and not have to deal with any legal issues concerning your state’s driver’s license. However, if you make a permanent move to any other state your license was not issued in, you have a legal responsibility to go to a DMV in your new state and get a new driver’s license. WARNING! If you are a teenager and you are crossing into state lines, beware! Not all states have the same legal age to drive. In one state the legal age may be 17 and in another it may be 18. If you are 17 traveling to another state where the legal age is 18, they may not accept your driver’s license. If you will be doing some state to state travel, contact those state’s DMV’s and ask what the legal age is to drive there and if they will honor your driver’s license if you are under their legal limit.
