Q: I got pulled over going 83 in a 55. The cop gave me a ticket but said I had to only pay 120 and no court appearance.

A: Yes, the speed the officer wrote down will be the speed he will use as testimony against you. It will be the value that will enter on your driving record if you mail in the ticket regardless of if you get supervision or a conviction. It will however be written as "X mph- Y mph over the limit". Whether you can mail in the ticket depends on when the ticket was issued. Given that you were clearly going faster than 25 miles per hour over, it would constitute a class B misdemeanor necessitating a court appearance. If however you were on the interstate and it was on or after January 1 of this year, it would not because the speed limit increased to 70 mph on all interstates making this ticket technically an "11-14 mph over the limit" ticket.

Now the bad news. This is all based on my reading of the current statutes and I have little knowledge of how this new change will shake out in the courts since the signage seems to suggest the speed limit hasn't changed. The reason for conflicting messages (your ticket and signage saying it was a 55mph zone while acting like it is a lower speed offense by not requiring a court date) is likely the result of the politics surrounding this law which was controversial and took effect on Jan. 1, 2015. My advice would be to call the clerk of the county which issued the ticket about a week after the ticket was written, let them know the date of the ticket, and ask them if you have a court date. If you do, this is more likely than not a class B misdemeanor (a non-supervision eligible offense) making it a very serious threat to your license and insurance rates for which an attorney would be a wise investment. If you don't have a court date, you face a petty offense for which you can mail in the ticket. So long as you haven't had court supervision in the past 12 months, mailing it in while having a good driving record will likely result in supervision.

I apologize for the information dump but this is a long form way of saying I can't say for certain how the court will view it since the law is so new and the police, traffic agencies creating signage, and others are making it hard to understand exactly how the law is being applied. Technically, your ticket should read "83 in a 70" if it was on an interstate but it doesn't. For this reason, I am advising you contact the clerk before taking any action. If they don't have a court date after about 10 business days, they are treating the area you were speeding as a 70 mph zone and thus it is a minor speeding ticket with little risk to your license. If they do, then they are treating it as a more serious offense.

I hope that helps and let me know if you have any questions!