On the 18th of December I was on my way to class. I went to make a turn slid on some ice and flipped my truck on its side. Didn't cause any damage to property or hit any other cars.

The state highway patrol man sited me for Failure to control and I have a court date for 8/Jan/2008.

Now I'm starting to worry, I need to know if I will loose my license. I can deal with a fine and traffic school. And this is my first accident and ticket.

I will be 18 years old on the 24th of December. So I will be 18 on my court date. But 17 at the time of accident. I just need to know if there is a chance of me loosing my license.

This happened in the State of Ohio.

ScottGem

I don't see any reason why you should. People lose their license for violating the laws associated with gaining the license. Unless, as a 17 yr old, you wre not supposed to be driving alone or at night and you were, that MIGHT cause a suspension.

heyimjustjoshinyou

Nope I have a valid Ohio Drivers License and I have no restrictions.
Also on the ticket the Patrolman marked conditions as wet when they were icy, how do I bring that up on my court date?

ScottGem

Just point it out to the adminstrative judge. What will probably happen is you will be given the opportunity to plead down to a lesser charge for a smaller fine with less or no points against your license. You could decline and argue in front of the judge, but its unlikely you will win. If the road was listed as wet and icy, it means you should have been going slower. The fact is you DID lose control, which means you were probably going too fast for the conditions.

heyimjustjoshinyou

I don't remember how fast I was going, but it couldn't of been that fast for the conditions, I was making a turn when I started sliding.

ScottGem

You are looking at it from the wrong angle. For you to start sliding and lose control then the judge (just like the police officer) is going to assume you were going too fast for the conditions. Otherwise you wouldn't have lost control. They go under the assumption that a prudent driver would not have lost control. Since you lost control, ergo, you were not driving prudently.

Fr_Chuck

Each court has its own rules and procedures, in Atlanta, both in city court and in county court, what happens, the judge call you up and any other witness for or against you. In this case there is none. so you will basicly tell the judge what happened.

Now If I wanted to try and get out of it, I would hire an attorney and see if they would allow traffic school and then drop the charges.
But all I can see that would happen ( at least in the courts I worked) would be a fine and a warning to be more careful.

heyimjustjoshinyou

Well if the fine isn't too much I'll just pay it. I considered the option of traffic school, but I just don't have the time for it.

I think that I am at ease now, I am going to plea no contest, tell the truth and hope for the best. But thank you for your answers!!

Fr_Chuck

Well for DUI you don't normally have a traffic school option instead of fine but often a school with a fine, normally the fine here will be between 500 and 1000 dollars, and you can make payments while on probation.