Our Approach to Portsmouth Reckless Driving Cases

Below, a Portsmouth reckless driving lawyer discusses how they approach new reckless driving cases with potential clients. If you have been charged call today to schedule a free consultation and discuss the best way to proceed with your case.

When we meet a potential client for the first time, we ask them to give me all of the details they remember about what happened. We want to know the facts of what happened from the very beginning. We ask them where they were going and if they were in a hurry to get there.

We ask about the interaction with the police officer that charged them and whether they were polite and cooperative in this interaction. Usually, a prospective client will tell me everything we need to know as they go through the story. But if not, then it’s really easy to fill in the gaps as he is going through it step by step. It is important to be prepared with all of the facts.

We let the potential client know that they can trust me, and that we are the one on their side so they should feel comfortable letting me know everything—even if it doesn’t make them look good. This is because it is a lot easier to defend somebody when we know what to expect in court and we are not being blindsided by previously unknown bad facts.

We also get information about their background such as whether they have a prior record and what they do for a living and in their spare time. The whole person is important, not just the person that happened to be driving on the particular day that they were charged.

What Are the Main Things You Look For In a Case?

One of the main things we look for in reckless driving cases is the reason for the stop, in case the driver was unfairly pulled over and then charged incorrectly. Another thing we look for in a case is why the driver was behaving in the way that amounts to the reckless driving charge.

Some clients tell me that the reason they were going fast was because they were running late, which isn’t a good excuse because it admits that they were driving fast on purpose. Another thing we look for is whether there were any consequences to anyone else besides the driver, or if there was the possibility of further consequences to others.

If there were a lot of cars on the road and the driver was weaving in and out of the traffic like a maniac, a judge will be less sympathetic to them. In a case like that, you need to prepare accordingly. You need to build a defense with the judge’s perception of the case in mind. The results of reckless driving cases are very fact-specific, so we really just try to get as much as the story out of the driver that he can remember.