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Video Transcribed: Why did the officer in Oklahoma lower the amount on my speeding ticket when he cited me? I’m Oklahoma attorney James Wirth and I’m about to tell you why that happens a lot of times.

So, you find yourself driving down the street, you’re maybe going over the speed limit amount. You get pulled over and then the officer tells you, you were going one speed, but he writes the ticket for a lesser speed. It makes you think, what’s he hiding? Did he lie about me going faster? And that’s why he’s writing it for a less amount.

Did he maybe do the radar at one speed and then he did it again, it was a lower speed and now he can’t use the old one. What’s going on here? Sometimes we’re really suspicious of the people writing us our tickets, so we may not realize when somebody is trying to do us a favor.

So what’s going on most of the time it doesn’t have anything to do with the evidence or that the radar was one, one time and therefore he can’t go along with that. He could go with whatever he saw because it’s what his testimony would be as far as what the radar shows.

So he doesn’t have to have the proof that’s still on the radar or anything like that. So what the officer is really doing is the officer’s doing you a favor. Lot of times you’ll see that they will reduce it, it may be going 15 over and they might write the ticket for 10 over or 9 over, in that range.

And the reason they’re doing that is because that’s a huge difference in threshold because if it’s 1 to 10 over and you get a conviction, that’s zero points on your license, not reported to DPS and insurance companies.

But if it’s 11 or more over, well then the court clerk upon a conviction has to give notice the department of public safety. And those are the records that your insurance company sees that determines what your rates are. So that’s an insurance increase. So a lot of times officers feel guilty about having to write tickets, but that’s their job.

So they do you a favor and they lower it a little bit because they know that that’s going to be better for you. Or sometimes if you’re going really fast, maybe 25, 26 over. They might lower it so that it’s not aggravated speeding and they lower it down so the fine is less.

I’ve seen those too and that’s them doing you a favor. What’s really interesting as an attorney, I get to see the circumstance in the clients that I represent where sometimes the officer gave them a deal and then we work out another deal with the prosecutor.

So sometimes somebody might’ve been going 25, 26 over. Officer cuts them a deal lowers it to 15 over. So that’s in that mid range point and then I get to meet with the prosecutor and say, “[inaudible 00:02:11] come on give this guy a break, reduce it some, let’s get it to 1 to 10”.

Sometimes they get two deals, they get the deal the officer gave him for free and then they get the deal that the attorney worked them out as part of the deal. That’s the way that it goes sometimes. That’s the way that the system is, but just remember if the officer’s reducing it, he’s probably doing you a favor.

Don’t be too mad at him for doing his job, but do maybe talk to an attorney so you can get the best possible results of your case. If you’re in this circumstance, want to talk to an attorney? Go to makelaweasy.com.