 |
 |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||
| Pre-pay
Accident Tickets & Risk Assuming Liability
by David A. Cardon, Esquire Dear Mr. Cardon, Last week I was involving in a car accident and received a summons for failure to yield. The officer who gave me the ticket told me I do not have to appear in court if I want to pre-pay the fine. I thought in Virginia you have to appear in court in cases involving auto accidents. Can I prepay the ticket or not? Yes, you can prepay the ticket. Virginia law changed in 2001. Before, if you were involved in an accident and you received a ticket, you had to appear in court on the return date regardless of whether or not you intended on pleading guilty or innocent. The law changed because citizens, who witnessed an accident, were summoned to court to testify against the defendant only to find the defendant pleaded guilty on the return date making their appearance unnecessary. To avoid this problem, the Virginia Beach General District Court has adopted the following plan: 1. If you are charged with a traffic offence that is listed as pre-payable in the Uniform Fine Schedule, you may prepay your fines and costs without a court appearance whether or not you were involved in an accident. 2. Law enforcement officers will not issue subpoenas at the scene of an accident to the witness but instead get the information needed from the witnesses should a subpoena for witnesses be later needed. more>> |
||||||||||||
VIRGINIA BEACH, NORFOLK, PORTSMOUTH, CHESAPEAKE, HAMPTON, NEWPORT NEWS |
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
1192 SOUTH LYNNHAVEN PARKWAY VIRGINIA BEACH, VA 23452 757-306-9060 EMAIL US |
||||||||||||
 |
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! | |||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|