CARELESS AND IMPRUDENT DRIVING TICKET
A careless and imprudent driving ticket is a serious charge issued to Missouri drivers. A careless and imprudent driving ticket, also known informally as a C&I, can lead to a serious rise in insurance premiums.
This article discusses different examples of careless and imprudent driving tickets in Missouri and why you should hire a traffic ticket attorney St. Charles to resolve them in court for you.
Since Missouri does not have a reckless driving statute, a C&I ticket in Missouri is usually designed to cover situations where the driver acted recklessly.
Examples are as follows:
Driver Dan fails to drive in a careful and prudent manner by weaving in and out of lanes in a 35 mph maximum speed zone. Or he causes and accident by passing someone in the right lane and not using his turn signal. Or he has a road rage incident where he ends up tailgating another driver for an excessive distance.
A C&I ticket can have strong penalties in Missouri. If a driver is ticketed but there was not an accident involved, it is generally charged as a Class B Misdemeanor, with a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for a conviction.
Where there is an accident related to the careless and imprudent driving, the offense is charged as a Class A Misdemeanor with a maximum of a year in jail and $2,000 fine for a conviction.
Just as important, a conviction for a C&I results in four (4) points added to your license. In addition to rising insurance premiums, the driver is half way to an administrative suspension of their driving privileges.
Driving While Intoxicated (“DWI”) charges can sometimes be plead down to a careless and imprudent driving ticket, depending on the police report and available evidence. A DWI that is reduced to a careless and imprudent driving plea is a good outcome compared to a conviction for DWI. This outcome is often called a “wet reckless”.
It’s very important to hire a St. Charles careless and imprudent ticket lawyer to assist you with resolving your ticket because they are often very subjective. We successfully had a ticket dismissed completely when I explained to the prosecutor that the sudden move to a right lane from a left lane by our client was not careless and imprudent but the exact opposite.
The officer in that case had not realized that the driver in front of our client had stopped suddenly to avoid hitting an animal in the road. As a result my client had no time to brake and his only option was to swerve to avoid hitting him. No accident was caused and the prosecutor dismissed the ticket after I provided this explanation.
CONCLUSION
There are often a variety of reasons people appear to act careless and imprudent while driving here in Missouri that can actually be explained with a valid reason for that action, often which is in fact very careful and prudent driving!
Charles J. Moore is the founder and owner of Traffic Ticket Center. He has been both a municipal prosecutor and a defense attorney during in his 17 years of practice, experience which greatly enhances his clients in cases where they are charged with a traffic offense, regardless of the charge.
