Frequently Asked Questions

Well, that depends. Do you need to drive to work or family obligations? Can you afford jacked up insurance rates for up to seven years? Will losing your license for 30-60 days or needing to do driver retraining impact your life?

If you are wealthy these things may not matter to you. But, most people need their license to just get through their daily obligations. A speeding ticket on your driving history starts the march to point accumulation. Also, it can have a serious long term impact on your wallet. You don’t need a lawyer to handle your case, but then again, you don’t need a dentist to pull a tooth. Even though these aren’t necessities, most people leave important things to professionals.

We picked this name because it is memorable. Because really, will you remember the name Jay Ruane in a year or two or if you saw the advertisement that brought you here? No, there is nothing memorable about Ruane. How do you even pronounce it? So we picked Mr. Speeding Ticket because that is what you need to remember. That’s what we do

See, this is a very common question and one which is tough to answer. Here is why. If you have never had a ticket before this one, what is a good result for you will be much, much different than what is a good result for the guy who has five prior speeding tickets in the last 12 months. It’s just…different. We aim to get the best result for you. Not the same result for everyone. You are unique. Your lawyer should treat you like that. You don’t want the result that we can get for someone else, you want the best for you. And that is what we get you.

There is a reason they call us Mr. Speeding Ticket! Seriously though, it’s probable that no other lawyers have had as many motor vehicle cases as we have in the last 20 years. MV cases is almost all we do. Hundreds per year, thousands over 20 years. Mr. Speeding Ticket is driven in the defense of drivers!

Yes, we do. You can upload your ticket using your phone’s camera to us and we will plead Not Guilty for you and also send in our paperwork at the same time. This allows us to become the attorney of record for you right away and start working on your case immediately. This also means they will advise us when the ticket is scheduled and you don’t have to worry about missing it in the mail.

There are a number of steps we take to defend you. First, we will file an appearance with the court so that they know we are fighting for you, and you aren’t going through this alone. Sometimes, that is enough for the prosecutor to choose not to prosecute you. In about 10% of our cases we get letters that they are dropping charges even before the court date. Next up we will prep your file and get our team of attorneys ready to go to court for you. We investigate your motor vehicle history to make sure any disposition doesn’t hurt your license and pull your driving history records if necessary. All this happens behind the scenes, so you don’t have to lift a finger or worry about a thing!

Faced with a fine of $299 for speeding from 81 to 85 MPH or $259 for speeding from 75 to 81, it can seem like whatever you do this process is going to cost you money. The truth is that hiring a professional WILL cost you money, but it can save you in the long term. The fees we charge for a speeding ticket save you the uncertainty of what might happen and also the time you lose from work or your daily activities on your court date.

Some clients hire us simply because attorneys get to “jump the line” and talk to the prosecutors first and get their cases called first in the courtroom. That alone can shave 2-3 hours off your wait time if you have to go to court, but we try everything to avoid that. If we can go without you, all the better!

Nowadays, many lawyers choose to concentrate their practices on certain areas of the law. Some handle divorce, some bankruptcy, and some focus on criminal defense. Motor vehicle infractions are a subset of criminal defense, but the long term implications of points, driver retraining, and the like might not be something that a normal criminal defense attorney is aware of and can help you with.

That is why our firm spends so much time handling Motor vehicle infractions every day. Because we do so many, we can spot a good deal from a bad deal, and we also know answers to questions because we have dealt with them before.

That might work in some states, but it certainly doesn’t in Connecticut. In fact, most of the websites that offer speeding ticket advice aren’t put out by lawyers. Lawyers have a legal and ethical requirement to give proper advice.

Instead, they are put online by former members of law enforcement. These people want to make a dollar selling an e-book. In Connecticut, the officer isn’t required to appear at your court date unless you make it all the way to a trial.

In the meantime, you will be “negotiating” with a state’s attorney. The prosecutor doesn’t really even “negotiate” with you. Instead, they will make you an offer to resolve the case, and they can’t legally tell you if that is in or against your interests. Only a lawyer you hire can tell you whether the resolution works for your specific needs.

Read question two again. There are many theories about what you can do to make your ticket have the least impact on your driver’s license, auto insurance, and points record. Only a lawyer who knows the law in Connecticut, has dealt with the prosecutors, and can examine YOUR driving history can give you proper advice about how a ticket will impact you. Choosing not to cash a check only serves to keep your money out of your pocket.

The state doesn’t care if you don’t cash the overage refund, because a check is only good for six months, and they would have applied the full payment to your ticket anyway. If you want to spend your time reading crazy ideas on the internet that is your choice, but a single phone call to us can get you accurate answers today, instead of “maybes” and “possibilities.”

Well, that was the law for the first few months after they enacted the cell phone law, but that defense has been removed by a subsequent public act. Now if you get a cell phone ticket you are facing the fine as charged, and many police departments like to give out “cell phone” tickets because the local municipality gets a check from the state every three months for 25% of the fines they collect for cell phone tickets.

This means that a cell phone ticket makes money for the town – even a DUI doesn’t do that. This is why so many departments set up cell phone traffic stops now, and there are many fewer DUI arrests than there were even a few years ago. It’s all about the money.

In fact, a public act passed in 2013 but not enforced by the DMV until 2018 could impact you a lot. It requires mandatory points on your driving history for any cell phone violation – regardless if you pay the fine or plead guilty. So the only way to keep those points off your record is to fight it with Mr. Speeding Ticket.

Passing a school bus is a heavy ticket. Not only are the fines high, but so are the possible points (which can lead to driver retraining) and unlike every other ticket – passing a school bus is often thought of as a deliberate act. You see, anyone could wind up speeding because they were not paying attention, but prosecutors get really upset when they think you deliberately passed a school bus. Because they think you chose to put little kids at risk of getting run over.

Now, passing a school bus isn’t as cut and dry as it looks, and a lot of time, you don’t even know that the bus has put up their stop sign until you are halfway past it, so we need to examine the videos if they exist to see if they can even prosecute you for the charge. If it is only the bus driver’s word – they may not be able to get the driver into court for a trial.

There are ways to defend these cases, but they are difficult. It’s better to fight and make the state go through the work than to just have such a conviction on your driving history. This type of violation will definitely make your insurance rates jump.

Connecticut weigh stations are open and looking for out-of-state truckers to hit with heavy fines. They have these stations open because Connecticut is in the midst of a shortfall in tax revenue and the state needs money – fast. By hitting truckers, they can collect mega fines and most of the time the fines get paid because it is not worth your time to come back to fight these cases.

That’s where we come in. We are here in Connecticut and can force them to prove that they have validated scales, and that they actually measured the weight properly. Sometimes we find that the scales are way out of calibration or that they assessed your vehicle incorrectly. But it’s only by fighting that we get that chance. As your representative in court, we can stand in for you and fight the huge fines and make sure you don’t pay more than you should have. We have saved our trucking clients tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary or illegal fines. Let us help you today.

We go to court and fight for you. We check to see how they measured your speed and determined it for the ticket. If it was radar or laser, we may ask for the records to make sure they are up to date.

If they use another method of judging your speed, we can take apart all the factors that may have caused them to misjudge the speed you were traveling. We do this so we can negotiate you the best possible resolution.