https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeKaPhjIRyg

What to Do When You Receive a Traffic Ticket

• What are my legal options?
• How are insurance premiums assigned?
• What is driving school?

 

Traffic tickets can be deceptively complex.  We offer a free consultation.  It makes sense to talk to a lawyer – Bill Powers

 

LEARN MORE: What happens if I pay old tickets?

 

 

 

For more information regarding the criterion for inclusion and member into Super Lawyers North Carolina Magazine CLICK HERE

 

 

Transcription of “What to do when you receive a traffic ticket” for the Hearing Impaired

Introducer: You’re listening to NC Law Talk with attorney Bill Powers. The podcast for when you’re in a pinch. An NBTA Board Certified criminal law specialist with 25 years of experience. Bill Powers answers your most pressing DWI, traffic and criminal defense questions on your time. Here he is attorney Bill Powers.

Robert Ingalls: Alright welcome to the first full-length episode of NC Law Talk with attorney Bill Powers. I am Robert Ingalls and I will be your guest host for this episode. It is an honor to be here and to be part of the launching of this podcast. Bill Powers is one of the most accomplished and well-respected attorneys in the state of North Carolina. He’s a Board Certified criminal law specialist, former President of the North Carolina Advocates For Justice and has been selected as a North Carolina Super Lawyer for 12 years and counting.

I am pleased to introduce one of the finest attorneys in the state and my friend Mr Bill Powers. How are you doing Bill?

Bill Powers: I’m well. Good Morning.

Robert Ingalls: Alright. Thanks for having me here man, I’m so happy to be a part of this.

Bill Powers: Well I’m honored to be with you this morning.

Robert Ingalls: Alright. So we’re gonna jump right in. Today we are going to be talking about traffic tickets. What you do during, after, whether or not getting an attorney would be the best option for you. Alright Bill, so this is one of the questions that when we decided to talk about this that came to my mind, that I never see answered, because it’s usually too late by the time you’re coming looking for advice. What is it you do the moment those blue lights come on? In your mind? Obviously you pull over. You probably shouldn’t run right?

Bill Powers: Right.

Robert Ingalls: Right. They’ve gotten pretty good at keeping up with you?

Bill Powers: Right.

Robert Ingalls: But once you’re pulled over, what are the steps? What are your rights in that moment?

Bill Powers: Well after cursing and trying to think of something quick in your mind to explain what you were doing, yeah I mean the obviously thing is, is that you pull over, try to find a safe place. I am sometimes amazed that people react so strongly that they actually almost cause a wreck. I regularly have a police officer say “I’ll give you a reasonable period of time to pull over and if you don’t think it’s safe, turn on your flashers or something like that and pull over in a well-lighted area or take your time. It doesn’t have to be squealing tires and running off the road and anything like that.” So immediately is find a safe place to pull over, okay?

The second thing is, is to start realizing that the police officer has a job and they generally speaking, do not want to have problems in doing their job and one of the things I think about is how am I going to get the necessary materials or documents that I think they’re gonna want to have without making the police officer nervous. And I don’t know if you know what I mean by that, but sometimes people don’t realize is that if you reach around your car, you could be reaching for your driver’s license or you could be reaching for a gun.

So I start thinking about that. This is actually in a forethought, that’s why I keep personally my driver’s license and my registration and my insurance on my visor of my car so I can easily grab it and I’m not reaching down what lawyers call a furtive gesture. That’s one of my favorite words from law school. And the police officer … Most people don’t keep guns up in their visor. I think it puts them at ease to start off with.

Robert Ingalls: Sure. And it think that’s good advice and that’s something I kind of learned the hard way, is I used to keep everything in the glove box-

Bill Powers: Sure.

Robert Ingalls: … and I’m with you now. Everything I need is clipped to my visor and it is in my hand. Thank, I’m gonna knock on wood next time I get a chance. I haven’t been pulled over in probably six years, but when I do, it’s right there and by the time he gets to my window, or she gets to my window it’s like in my hand ready to hand it them.

Bill Powers: Yeah. And I just had, you know when you have those times in your life when you realize “Oh my God! I turned into my dad”. I just realized that’s something my dad did and I never knew … Until this moment really realized probably why. Sorry dad. Now I don’t keep my mileage recordation he use to have a little card he would keep up the and track what the mileage got in his car, but I do keep it up there and I haven’t, like you I haven’t been pulled over in quite some time, knock on wood, but it’s a really kind of a first step is to just have your stuff together and it also brings a valid point.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make sure that you one, have insurance on your car and two, that the tags are valid. That you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do for your registration and paying your taxes. I am regularly amazed how angry people are they got pulled over and I’m like, “You realize that you hadn’t had your car registered in about a year? Of course, they’re gonna pull you over if you owned a sticker around your license plate, they’re gonna pull you over.”  And so have yourself in order beforehand.

Robert Ingalls: So another thing that I see come up a lot and I think would be very valuable for people to understand, is what do you say the officer when he says, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

Bill Powers: I say “Good Morning”. I think one; it’s nice to be nice. We do live in the south and I don’t think it’s unusual to say “Good Morning Officer”. I don’t think it helps to be lippy or give people a hard time. At the same time I don’t think you need to answer particularly that question. You can say “Good Morning Officer” and “Do you know why I pulled you over?” And say well I’m not sure I’d like to hear what you think? You may just be checking if I’m okay”.

Robert Ingalls: Gotcha. So don’t go copping to anything right there.

Bill Powers: Yeah and I’m not trying to be a Smarty-Marty about it. I mean if you’re going 110 miles an hour on I-485 I think it’s reasonable to assume you would say “Well I was probably going a little faster than I should have”.

Robert Ingalls: Okay there’s nothing that that admission will hurt you later in court?

Bill Powers: No, especially with speeding tickets. The discourse between, or conversation between you and the officer is very … Very rarely is it brought in to any form of importance on a traffic ticket. Now that’s different if the traffic ticket develops into something more. And when people say, “Well what do you mean by something more?” Maybe driving while impaired. Maybe the traffic stop was the basis of a drug charge or driving unlicensed or both. So it’s traffic plus. So there are times where when you say things it’s not necessarily to your benefit, but we’re talking about traffic tickets. We’re talking about speeding tickets, red light violations, lane violations, things like that.

Now I have seen tickets where the officer, if you get ornery with them, I’ve seen them write notes on the ticket saying “so and so Mr and Miss Smith said that they were gonna call my boss and have my badge.” And that’s probably not a good idea to say that to the officer.

Robert Ingalls: So do you think, have you noticed when you’re in court dealing with citations like this that, that can sometimes make your job a little bit harder to get them what they want?

Bill Powers: Oh sure. Absolutely.

Robert Ingalls: Okay. So I think the takeaway there is be nice.

Bill Powers: Yeah, I mean and think about it, if you’re a prosecutor and you’re sitting in a room and you’ve got hundreds and maybe thousands of tickets you’re trying to dispose of on a daily basis and then you come across one where the person really showed their tail feathers, I think you’re a little less inclined to give them a little extra consideration. Maybe you’ll look a little bit more carefully at their record to see if this is a problem as opposed to … You know we all get tickets, it’s normal. And I think most prosecutors understand that and aren’t looking to kill you on them.

Robert Ingalls: Sure. So after you get that ticket, you go through the process, they end up writing the ticket because you didn’t have a nice enough smile to get out of it and you get the ticket, what are the first steps you really should take in that moment because I ask that because frequently the officer will say, “Now you can go here and pay it.”

Bill Powers: Right. Don’t do that.

Robert Ingalls: Why?

Bill Powers: Well a host of reasons. I say this all the time and I really mean it. You hear the saying, “Don’t just stand there, do something!” In law often times the best advice I give people is “Don’t just do something, stand there.” And what I mean by that is, don’t just immediately pay off a citation. Find out what’s going on in the background. And not that I think police officers are to any nefarious purpose, but when they give you the citation and say, “You can pay this off online” it may not be what’s necessarily best for you, because they don’t know always what your background is.

They don’t know how many wrecks you’ve had. They don’t know if you’ve had other moving violations. They don’t know the status of your license. Are you commercial? Well they should know if you’re a commercial driver’s license, but there are a lot of moving parts and I spend as much time fixing problems that people have created themselves.

Now obviously they create it by getting the citation, but then they exacerbate the situation by paying off the citation or doing that online thing, which is the new thing in North Carolina without really understanding the nature and the consequences of doing that. So I tell people, “Hey listen, we offer free consultation. That means we don’t charge anything if we think you can handle the ticket yourself. If we think that it’s probably just the best idea to pay it off or even go online, we’ll tell you that.”

On the other hand, it makes sense to find out what the background is and say, “Well, you probably shouldn’t do that. You may benefit from having some legal help.”

Robert Ingalls: Gotcha. So is there anything else you should do? Should you contact your insurance company for a ticket? Or is that just for an accident?

Bill Powers: Well. Good question. Multiple part answer. For a regular ticket, assuming it doesn’t involve a wreck, that’s why I think it’s a little bit more complicated response, I would not call the carrier right off the bat. I’m not aware of any duty in North Carolina for you to tell on yourself or put them on notice that there may be a ticket coming. I know that’s a common thing where people call their carrier up and say “What should I do?” I think it’s an important consideration to understand that carriers make money by raising rates not lowering rates.

And I have a Juris Doctorate for a reason; I’m looking out for the best interests of my client. But I also understand the nuance of the law. That doesn’t mean we don’t work with insurance carriers. I’ve had numerous times where I call up and say, “You can’t raise the rate based on this” or “This is what a statute says”, but again this kind of falls under the genre of if you get a free consult with a lawyer, we’ll take 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes and talk with you and tell you what we think the best thing is to do. But I rarely tell clients to call their carrier. Even if they have ultimately a conviction for a criminal matter or an infraction, which many tickets are infractions, I would still say, “Just wait and see what the carrier does if anything.” Does it get reported back?

While we’re sitting here in Charlotte, which is on the South Carolina border, I mean not that I can see Russia from my front door, but it’s not that far away and a lot of people live in Fort Milne and work in Charlotte and there’s this, they just assume while I’m cross the state lines it’s no big deal. Well it is a big deal between South Carolina licensees and North Caroline licensees and sometimes things get reported back, some things sometimes they don’t.

Robert Ingalls: Gotcha. So if you were to get a citation in North Carolina could it be affected differently in South Carolina?

Bill Powers: Absolutely. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. And that’s true in any state. I regularly get calls from people flying, “I was in Washington State, I was flying to the West Coast or something. Rented a car. Got a doozy of a ticket. Didn’t figure I was gonna be back anytime soon. Didn’t take care of the ticket. Now I’ve got a notice from NCE, North Carolina Department of Transportation Division of Motor Vehicles, DMV. I’ve got a letter from them saying they were suspending my license. Why?” And then they realize, “Oh I forgot about that.” Forgot about using hand quotes that you can’t see really on sound, but they forgot about the citation.

Yeah, out-of-state tickets can … There’s this new thing and they’re called computers and the internet. I don’t know, maybe you’ve heard of them?

Robert Ingalls: It’s ruined everything.

Bill Powers: I know, it’s ruined the ability to skip town and not take care of your ticket. And that’s … You know I’ve actually had tickets where people were driving in gosh, I had someone in Barcelona that got a pretty decent ticket and they thought “Yeah, I’m not gonna do anything about it” and I’m not gonna say that particular one affected North Carolina license, but there were some questions asked and it had more to do with the ability to travel back to Spain.

Robert Ingalls: Wow.

Bill Powers: Yeah. It was a pretty serious case, but yeah, don’t just assume that if you cross the state line, you may not be violating the Man Act or anything like that, but you should consider and take seriously all tickets. And if it’s not that big of a deal, we’ll tell you.

Robert Ingalls: Now let’s say somebody actually does go online and they pay that ticket and then they realize, or they’re listening to the podcast now and they paid the ticket yesterday, are there steps they can take? Or is it too late?

Bill Powers: Yes and no. That’s a really good question and it kind of depends. Now the reason is, is because this is really a developing area right now and to my knowledge right now, they’re greatly limiting the type of citations that they’re willing to work with you online.

And some jurisdictions, for example Charlotte has for years had kind of an internal protocol and now this is being layered on that. So generally speaking the overall rule is if you pay a ticket off and if that ain’t good, as far as re-opening it, there are exceptions for example, a Prayer for Judgment Continued or some people refer to it as a PJC. I’ve heard it called a PJC, a PFC, a PBJ. Every iteration of that acronym under the sun. But because the judgment is technically continued, you may have some ability to have a court address that.

And there is something called a Motion for Appropriate Relief. It’s an option where, and I think it’s sometimes misused to be honest with you, but it is a possibility. So that generally speaking when we tell a person, we wouldn’t say, “Let’s reopen the case.” I’d first want to ask why you want to reopen that case. Meaning, kind of going back and doing what I would have done in the first place is to see what are truly the consequences gonna be. Sometimes people call up and say, “I did a terrible thing. I paid the ticket off and I don’t want to do it. I want to open it up.” And I say, “Well, hold on a second. Let’s back up. Maybe you didn’t do the wrong thing. Maybe you’re just second-guessing your decision. Let’s see what the consequences are for doing that and see if you really need to reopen the case.”

There’s again, there’s this assumption sometimes people have that you know they talk to uncle Freddy, they talk to cousin Steve who said, “Oh I did this and DA’s office dismissed the case and heck, they came over to my house and washed my car and did my dishes and-“

Robert Ingalls: Yeah, cousin Steve is the worse attorney.

Bill Powers: Yeah. Cousin. I always say, “Uncle Freddy”, but yeah the anecdotal evidence there is, it’s amazing how people will listen to friends and relatives, but not seek out the people that work in the profession who will talk to you for free and really get the straight scoop. We’ll tell you one way or the other. So the answer to your question in kind of a long, roundabout way is there are times, it depends on the type of citation.

Where really I do see it happen and where I do think it is appropriate is where people … I call it the “Do the right thing effect” where they try to do the right thing. They’ve had a ticket or a series of tickets that they haven’t taken care of. They start having this dance, this slow waltz with DMV with their license being suspended for longer, and longer, and longer and then maybe they get a little bit older. Maybe they have a job that says “Yeah, take care of these tickets. It actually, you would probably do better in life if you have an ability to drive around legally in North Carolina.” And so they go to DMV and DMV says, “Yeah just pay off these tickets and we’ll give you your license back.”

And again there’s no nefarious purpose, I don’t think the DMV person necessarily understands what will happen when they do that. And so they, my clients are people who have tried to do the right thing. They pay off the tickets. Sometimes thousands of dollars because there’s you know, North Caroline charges some pretty hefty Failure to Appear, late fees, court costs, fines. Court costs are unconscionably high in North Carolina, even for the most basic of citation. And they get their plastic license back; they take a picture of it. They post it online, “I finally have my license back”. And then 10 days later they get a letter from DMV that says “Your license has been revoked” and those are instances definitely where we not often, it’s not only some question about it’s appropriate to go back in and say, “Hey listen, he appeared pro-se, he had been provided some bad information, or he or she had, and this was the consequence of that.”

So there are times to open it up, but we see those … I call them license reclamation projects where we’re going back and trying to look globally at a person’s license and their privilege to drive. You’re seeing that more state-wide to where they’re having, they’re being the State of North Carolina in some jurisdictions, amnesty type of programs. I’ve heard of one called that or where if you come to them and, I don’t know use the term cop to some tickets, not taking care of, they’ll be able to dismiss some of them. I still would think it would be a better idea to have a lawyer involved in that process, but we’re seeing now as a policy matter in North Carolina I think more of the intent either from Jones Street in Riley or the General Assembly or prosecutors as a whole of “Let’s get people legal” as opposed to just suspension, after suspension, after suspension, after suspension, and then people still drive.

You can agree or disagree with that policy, but I have seen a major change from when I first got involved in the systems and now. That there seems to be more of an understanding of, “Hey, we’re trying to get this person legal again.”

Robert Ingalls: Gotcha and that kind of brings me to my next question that I think a lot of people have, if I end up getting myself into a position where I have accumulated so many points that I lose my license, is that something that an attorney may be able to help me out with in that moment?

Bill Powers: Sure, sure and more than one way. First, there’s the citation itself. Of how to handle it and what the most appropriate disposition would be. But as a secondary part of this, and this is where people don’t always understand that they’re dealing with technically two separate entities. There’s the court system and when you get pulled over all you see is the officer and the ticket and you’re like the system, the man is trying to hold me down-

Robert Ingalls: Right.

Bill Powers: … you know? But you’re dealing with the court system on a citation, which it may be a criminal matter. A lot of people don’t realize that tickets, some of them are criminal matters based on the severity of the offense. Probably the majority of them are infractions, where it is not a criminal matter, but you have to deal with the court, then you get to deal with this other entity, which is while related to the court is technically separate. It’s DMV.

And there are times where we have to go back and ask for a hearing. License restoration with DMV. Are you eligible for a hearing? Are there things that you can do in order to administratively be reinstated? So I think it helps people to understand that there are times your license is suspended because the court has ordered it be suspended. The Judge as part of the judgment or the order of the citation, normally it would be a pretty serious thing. A criminal violation or misdemeanor. And then DMV can administratively suspend or revoke, and we use those terms interchangeably, for an accumulation of points or having too many citations within a certain period.

I once taught a seminar I called it The Twelve Days of Christmas, you know like the song of naming all the ways that DMV can revoke you for citations. And so even if it, and I’m not kidding, you laugh but there really are … You know if you get a moving violation more than this speed and this speed or two or more violations within this time period or having a Prayer for Judgment, excessive PGCs or having a … There’s a lot of different ways, so the answer to your question is yeah, we can help people with the citation itself, but we spend a fair amount of time, like we have an attorney on staff that does almost all day long. That’s what she does. She does DMV hearings and it’s not just DWI.

I think a lot of people assume the DMV just handled DWI’s. No, they do administrative restorations all the time for traffic tickets.

Robert Ingalls: Right on. So that kind of leads me to my next question as well, I think after losing your license the next number one complaint you’re probably gonna get is, how do I pay less insurance? How do I keep my insurance from going up?

Bill Powers: Oh, great question. You know what’s funny is, I think people are actually more concerned about insurance than they are their license? Maybe that’s, I don’t know that’s … My grandad always used to say, “If you hit people in the wallet, you change behaviors” and North Carolina, believe it or not, and my friends in the insurance industry will probably just be shocked to hear me say this because I’m always battling with them when they want to raise the rates, but the reason I get to battle with them, is that North Carolina has some pretty reasonable laws and controls over the insurance industry about when and why they can raise your rates.

Now there is some game playing on there that irritates me, but as a whole you do have some opportunities, but you have to be very careful about timing issues and what you’re taking responsibility for. What’s getting dismissed? Is this an offense that would result in a violation or not a violation? But yeah insurance is, you know we have a … I call it hierarchy when I tell clients.

And the first part is, as a lawyer is, keep client out of jail. Okay? That’s one of the things we really want to avoid. Especially with traffic matters. And people don’t realize you can go to jail. You can get arrested for speeding tickets, fast ones. And it’s not as fast as you’d think.

Second is, save the license if at all possible. And then third is, try to avoid the insurance premiums. And it’s complicated. That’s why I say, “Call and talk to a lawyer” because cousin … What did we say? Cousin Steve or uncle Freddy, that may not know what they’re talking about and the law may have changed since they got their citation 20 years ago.

Robert Ingalls: So let’s say that somebody … They work through it. They hire an attorney. They get their result that they want and they don’t think their insurance is gonna go up. Well, turns out that when they get their next bill, their insurance has gone up and let’s say that it shouldn’t have. Is that something that they can call you and you might be able help them with?

Bill Powers: Sure. Sure. We do. And I’m nice about it. I see this more often in out-of-state carriers. As we’ve gotten larger and more global, maybe national in insurance a company in Connecticut will receive notice that you’ve received a citation and they just raise your rates and we remind them, “Just thought I’d give you a copy of North Carolina General Statute number and that this person has not had X, Y and Z and set forth protocols.” Yeah we regularly tell insurance carriers you can’t do that. Now this is where the game playing gets me ornery. Whether you realize it or not, you may be receiving, and I’m gonna do my air-quotes again. What do for air-quotes on audio? I don’t what to use.

Robert Ingalls: I usually just say, “I’m gonna do my air-quotes there”.

Bill Powers: Okay. We’re giving you discounts and so we’re not really raising your rates. We’re just not giving you the discounts anymore. And the substantive effect is that you have less dollars in your wallet. If they are not giving you the discounts for … and you see these things, you know, I’m a non-smoker, I have a four cylinder car versus an eight cylinder car with a blower on the front or whatever, if they’re not giving you the discounts anymore there’s not a whole lot I can do about that. It’s just like well maybe you go to another-

Robert Ingalls: Sounds like they just kind of found a back door.

Bill Powers: Yeah.

Robert Ingalls: To charge you more.

Bill Powers: No, it is. And I’ve seen it more in the last three to five years then we used to. Again because we have become so global in our perspectives, there isn’t this relational aspect. When I was coming up, I was insured through Innagon Insurance Company. I don’t even think they’re in business anymore. And my dad’s like, “Son this who you go to and this is …” I remember having a relationship with my Innagon person and I would call them up and that’s kind of ended. There’s not a relationship with insurance carriers now. It seems like find the cheapest insurance, which is a mistake as well. If we’re talking about insurance, cheap ain’t good and good ain’t cheap.

Robert Ingalls: Yeah, it’s nice when you’re paying those premiums. It’s terrible when you’re on the side of the road and you need something.

Bill Powers: Yeah. Yeah. Or in the hospital and have had some-

Robert Ingalls: Or in court.

Bill Powers: Yes. So yeah we do, we call carriers up. I try not to be irascible with them or irritate them, but at the same time, there are times where I just send them a letter saying “You can’t do this.” And normally in the vast majority of them, there is some positive result. Very rarely do I actually have to write a, pen of a letter to the Commissioner of Insurance in North Carolina and advise them that we … I’ve done it a couple times and in many instances, I can’t say every, but because I don’t remember everything, but in many instances we’ve been able to use the statute to our benefit. That’s part again, part of lawyers, we know what the law says or doesn’t say. That’s why you need to be careful about how you handle these things.

Robert Ingalls: Perfect. So the takeaway there is even after your traffic tickets done, if your insurance goes up and you don’t think it maybe should have, give an attorney a call.

Bill Powers: Right.

Robert Ingalls: Right. Is there anything else that we need to know when we receive a traffic ticket?

Bill Powers: I think timing is important, because what happens is people get the citation. The newer ones in the cars now, they call them e-citations. I think the state was trying to get all-

Robert Ingalls: They’re hip.

Bill Powers: Yeah. Hello millennia we got e-citation. Like that’s better. It’s a piece of paper that’s written on, you know sometimes it prints out well and it’s a car printer that police officers use. It’s real easy to be confused for a McDonald’s burger wrapper and put underneath the seat. And you forget about going to court and some citations use just get a kind of a nasty letter from DMV saying “You missed court and on this date, we are going to suspend your license.” I’ve also had other cases where you hear the knock, knock, knock on your door, “I’m Trooper so-and-so and I’m here to pick up your driver’s license. Thank you very much.” And people are like, “I didn’t know troopers came to your house” and I’m like, “Yeah, we have that level of service in North Carolina.”

It’s called a pick-up order and they pick up your license and if you miss court and it was one that you’re not allowed to miss court, sometimes they’re picking up more than your license. Sometimes they take you with the license to court and jail, which I do see. And we’re joking about it now but I happens man.

Robert Ingalls: It’s real when you’re in the orange.

Bill Powers: Yeah. You won’t have trouble keeping it real. You know you’re not going to Sing Sing or anything like that, but it’s an embarrassing process. They take your picture when you get locked up.

Robert Ingalls: I’m sure it goes in those magazines that people pick up at the gas station.

Bill Powers: Yeah and by the way, don’t ever pay that fee to get you … That’s a game that these kind of … I don’t have a lot of … I mean this is just … But they take your name off and then six months later if you don’t pay them again they put it back on.

Robert Ingalls: Recurring scam.

Bill Powers: Yeah. Some would call it bribery.

Robert Ingalls: Yeah.

Bill Powers: But, yeah, so don’t pay that off. But yeah, if you get arrested, there are a couple jurisdictions, very few that I’m aware of, I know of one locally, where they don’t take your picture. But again we were talking about out-of-state licenses. There’s this new thing called the computer and I don’t know why people love looking at the busted magazine, every major television station has a mug shot kind of deal. I guess that’s a whole other conversation and I’ve seen pictures where you think the person just won the dang lottery they look so happy that they’re going to jail. And then you see the teary ones too.

Robert Ingalls: Do everything that you do well, right?

Bill Powers: Right. Just you know, if you’re gonna take a mugshot photo I guess smile right?

Robert Ingalls: Yeah right. It’s gonna get plastered.

Bill Powers: Right.

Robert Ingalls: Alright Bill I think we’ve covered a lot of ground here. Any last words?

Bill Powers: I wish people would realize that we’re, lawyers are humans. That we’re actually here to help. Most lawyers are in the practice because they like helping people and you should not be afraid to call a lawyer. You shouldn’t assume that the second you call we’ve got this big red button that we push and the clock’s ticking at some incredibly fast speed and you’re gonna get a bill from us. The first conversation at least with us is free. And that’s not true in every practice group or every area. But when it comes to speeding tickets, traffic tickets, we’re gonna talk to you for free. We’re gonna ask you a series of questions and if we think we can help you out, we’ll tell you and if we think you can handle it yourself, we’ll tell you that too.

Robert Ingalls: Alright. Thank you sir.

Bill Powers: Thank you.

Introducer: You’ve been listening to NC Law Talk with attorney Bill Powers. Your resource for answers to your most pressing DWI, traffic and criminal law questions on your time. Ready to discuss your matter now? Call 704 342 HELP for your free and totally confidential consultation. That’s 704 342 4357.

NC Law Talk is an educational resource only. The information presented on this podcast does not constitute legal advice and is not a substitute for consulting with an attorney. Every situation is unique. Therefore, you should always consult with a licensed attorney before making any legal decisions. Thanks for listening.

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