Q: I am 16 and just got a ticket for rolling a stop sign. I am a good student. What will/can my consequence be?

A: Hello Asker,

It largely depends on how you choose to handle it. At your age, you often cannot apply for something called court supervision by mail or without appear in court. This is often mistakenly referred to as "probation" or "traffic school" so if you read that, this is often what they are referring to when they use those terms in relation to traffic tickets. If you are found guilty, you either get supervision or conviction. A supervision is a non-public finding of guilt. It does not appear on your driving record publicly available but rather on a less public court record. This keeps it from jumping your insurance rates and from being visible on employer driving record checks. It also keeps it from harming your driving privileges. With supervision, you often have a fine, traffic school (especially at your age), and a supervised period where you can't get any new tickets (4 months in cook county often). If you complete this supervision period successfully, the case closes without a public reporting of your guilt.

By contrast, conviction will appear on your publicly available driving records. It can and likely will affect insurance rates and may be a basis for some jobs (delivery driver, etc) to be not available due to employer access to these records. It may also harm your driving privileges in ways such as increasing the duration of your passenger limitation or even suspension or revocation if you receive too many violations. For most practical purposes, this ticket on its own, if it is your first, won't result in a suspension (save for missing court) but it will likely harm your insurance rates if you are convicted.

You may either choose to plead guilty or not guilty. If you plead not guilty in Cook County (where your ticket appears to be from) and an officer doesn't appear on your court date and you do, the case may be dismissed. If they are there, you will have a trial that day where the judge will find you either guilty or not guilty (if guilty, then sentence you to supervision or conviction; if not guilty, you pay nothing and get nothing on your record). If you plead guilty, the judge will sentence you to court supervision or conviction. Often, they give supervision particularly for minor violations like this. Lastly, you can ask for an attorney and they will give you time to come back with one on a future court date.

In general, assuming this is not connected with an auto accident, court supervision is a good outcome. If it is an accident related ticket, it is advised that you speak to an attorney to see what needs to be done as those are more complex and have bigger implications. Lastly, you should make sure to let your parents know because they MUST accompany you in court because you are under the age of 18.

Hope that helps and let us know if you have any additional questions!

Sincerely,

Jason A. Wilkins

Traffic Attorney

(630) 445-2293