Multiple Reasons why you Should Sign your Traffic Ticket

Video Transcribed: Never don’t sign that traffic ticket. I’m Tulsa attorney James Wirth and I’m going to tell you why every time you get a traffic ticket, you need to sign it.

All right, so you get pulled over for some sort of traffic offense and you’re kind of upset about it and the officer’s going over with you and you dispute what happened. They say you’re going this fast, you know you weren’t and you want to contest it and you can’t wait to get into court.

So you’re in that frame of mind and the officer asks you, “Why don’t you sign here on the ticket?” Sometimes people’s gut reaction is, “Well, I don’t agree with that. I don’t want to sign the ticket. I want to contest this. I want to go to court.”

And I’ve had people call me after the fact, so angry with the way the officer responded when they refuse to sign, where they’re threatening to take them to jail and all that and they’re very angry with the way the officer handled it and I have to kind of explain to it.

When they’re asking you to sign that ticket, they’re not asking you to admit guilt. They’re not asking you to agree why you were pulled over or what you’re sided with. The only thing you’re agreeing to is one thing.

You’re agreeing to show up to your court date, if a court date is required, or to pay a ticket before your court date if court date is not required. That’s all you’re agreeing to is to show up.

So when you refuse to sign that, it puts the officer at a very difficult position. It puts him in the position of having to do what he doesn’t want to do, which is arrest you to make sure you show up for your court date, to throw you in jail and make you bond out, so a bail bondsman can ensure that you show up for your court date or so that you have to pay in order to bond out on your own. You don’t want to have to do that.

The simple thing to do, understand that when he’s asking you to sign the ticket, he’s not asking you to admit anything other than you’ll show up to court and of course you want to promise to show up to court because that’s easiest way to handle things. So sign that ticket. Never don’t sign that ticket.

If you find yourself in this circumstance or you dealing with a traffic ticket, want to speak with an attorney, go to makelaweasy.com.