Tony received a traffic ticket for 'following too closely' after a minor fender bender. These tickets are 'appearance' tickets. You can not simply pay a fine online, and even if you could, you never should. All traffic violations are misdemeanor offenses in Georgia punishable by 12 months in jail and up to a $1000 fine. That's the definition of a misdemeanor. And if you simply pay a fine on a traffic ticket before going to court, it gets reported as a ‘guilty’ to the Department of Drivers Services.

Tony missed his scheduled court date. This makes things exponentially worse. The Court issued a ‘failure to appear’ against him and reported that to the DDS. This resulted in the DDS suspending Tony’s driver’s license. Tony was then pulled over several months later and arrested for driving on a suspended license. So now he had two criminal charges he was facing.

I told Tony to contact his insurance company and obtain a ‘liability letter’ stating they accepted liability for the accident and paid the damages to the other driver and take a defensive driving course. While he did all of that, I got a new court date for him on the accident case. We presented the letter and course certificate and the Solicitor reduced the ‘following too close’ charge to a ‘basic rules’ violation, This is a non-reportable offense. After closing this case, a 912 form was sent to the DDS notifying them that there was no longer an FTA. He was then allowed to reinstate his license.

We then went to court on his suspended license ticket. Because he had a valid license, the solicitor reduced that charge to ‘no license on person.’ This is important, because if he were to plead guilty for driving on a suspended license, he would suffered another suspension.