New York State Traffic Tickets
Drivers get pulled over for a whole variety of reasons by police officers in New York. Not every stop, however, will earn you a ticket. It is only when the driver deviates from the established standards of driving in the state, that he/she gets a ticket. Traffic related offences, resulting in tickets, are of two types: non-criminal and criminal. The DMV Traffic Violations Bureau (TVB) handles non-criminal traffic offences. More serious or criminal traffic offences like reckless driving and DWI are dealt by the local criminal courts.
If a driver gets a traffic ticket, he/she must respond to the ticket. Not answering and ignoring the ticket is not an option. The back of the ticket contains information on what to do about it. In a majority of the cases (tickets for non-criminal offences, non-parking violations, etc.), tickets can be answered online by contacting the TVB office. Drivers may also have the option of pleading not-guilty, by mail or by stopping by at the local TVB office in person.
By pleading not guilty, a driver challenges the police officer’s authority to issue him/her with the traffic ticket and asks for a hearing. In the alternative, he/she can pay the ticket and any other related charges (surcharges and fees) with his/her credit card.
Getting traffic tickets in NYC and not answering them is not an option, as mentioned earlier. The TVB or the traffic court notifies the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) which can suspend a driver’s driving privileges by suspending his/her driver license till the driver pays the ticket or asks for a hearing. Suspension of driving privileges, however, does not mean that the driver has been automatically assumed guilty as charged. It simply means that the driver has not responded to the ticket in a timely manner. The driver may, however, be considered guilty if he/she continues to ignore and not answer the ticket after his/her driving privileges have been suspended. This is called “default conviction”. The driver will have to pay an additional fee to remove a default conviction.
What kind of road related offenses does the NY traffic violation bureau handle?
Whenever you get a ticket for committing a traffic violation in the areas of New York City, Rochester or Buffalo that is not considered a criminal offense, the NY Traffic Violations Bureau will be dealing with the paperwork and the processing. In case you don’t accept that you were at fault, an Administrative Law judge will handle your case.