If you want to fight your ticket or traffic violation, you can't blindly walk into the court and hope to just explain yourself to the judge. It's going to take some due diligence on your part if you want to actually be declared innocent for your traffic offense.

There is a little bit of research that you can do before you get to the courtroom which can help you in your case.

1. Look up the infraction that you are charged with. This might be done on a city or county website or you might have to go down to your city or county court offices to see the laws in place. What you do with this information is try to figure out what the prosecutors actually have to prove to make you be found guilty. Take this information and dissect it into pieces and think about how you could argue against one or all of them. If you challenge just one point of this violation, a fair judge has to find you innocent.

2. Look for any mistakes on the ticket. It's not common for there to be a mistake but sometimes there are mistakes. If there is one, normally these will be dropped. It's not likely but it's something to keep in mind before spending lots of time thinking of a defense.

3. Be prepared to ask questions about how court works. If there is something that you don't understand about court, there is only so much research you can do before you get to the courtroom. It's acceptable to admit that since you aren't an attorney that you don't understand the procedures. A judge should explain these to you if you don't understand what's going on. Going along with something you don't understand is a sure way of losing or agreeing to something you didn't intend.

4. Prepare as many questions you can think of about the incident as you can. If the officer can't answer a question or can't answer a question clearly, it makes them not look as credible in court as you do. Yes, it should be a system where you are innocent until proven guilty, but in this case the officer's word is highly valued. Get the officer to! look a bit confused on the subject matter and that word is going to be devalued for this situation making your chances a little bit better.