Traffic Offense Attorney in Dearborn

Ticket or crime

Michigan divides traffic violations into two kinds, and the line between them decides everything that follows.

A civil infraction is a ticket. Speeding, improper lane use, running a stop sign, careless driving, and most equipment violations fall here under MCL 257.741. The penalty is a fine, costs, and points. There is no jail and no criminal record. The risk is to your license and your insurance, and for some drivers that risk is serious.

A misdemeanor traffic offense is a crime. Reckless driving, driving while license suspended, driving without insurance, leaving the scene of an accident, and drag racing are misdemeanors under the Michigan Vehicle Code, charged by complaint, arraigned in district court, and ending in a criminal conviction if you plead or are found guilty. Fleeing and eluding and leaving the scene of a serious injury accident are felonies. These are handled exactly like any other criminal case, because that is what they are.

Most people treat both kinds the same way: pay it and move on. For a civil infraction, paying is an admission of responsibility and the points attach. For a misdemeanor, paying the fine on a citation is a guilty plea and the conviction is permanent.

Traffic charges we handle

Charge	Statute	Classification	Exposure
Reckless driving	MCL 257.626	Misdemeanor	93 days, $500, 6 points, 90-day hard suspension
Driving while license suspended or revoked	MCL 257.904	Misdemeanor	93 days first offense, 1 year after; an added like-for-like suspension
No insurance	MCL 500.3102	Misdemeanor	Up to 1 year, $200 to $500, license suspension until proof of insurance
Leaving the scene, property damage	MCL 257.618	Misdemeanor	90 days, $100, 6 points
Leaving the scene, injury	MCL 257.617a	Misdemeanor	1 year, $1,000, 6 points
Leaving the scene, serious injury or death	MCL 257.617	Felony	5 to 15 years
Fleeing and eluding	MCL 257.602a	Felony	2 to 15 years by degree, 6 points, license revocation
Drag racing	MCL 257.626a	Misdemeanor	93 days, 4 points
Careless driving	MCL 257.626b	Civil infraction	Fine, 3 points
Speeding, 16 or more over	MCL 257.627	Civil infraction	Fine, 4 points

Reckless driving deserves its own word. It is the most common traffic misdemeanor in the Wayne County district courts, it is frequently charged after a crash or a high-speed stop on I-94, M-39, or Telegraph Road, and people plead to it without realizing that the 90-day suspension that follows is a hard suspension. No restricted license to drive to work. A reduction to careless driving, which is a civil infraction with three points and no suspension, is the standard goal and is often achievable when the file supports it.

Driving while license suspended has its own page’s worth of traps, which our guide to driving on a suspended license in Michigan covers: the conviction triggers a second suspension of the same length, and many Dearborn drivers never knew they were suspended because the notice went to an old address.

Points, your license, and your insurance

Points attach to a driving record on conviction or admission of responsibility and stay for two years under MCL 257.320a. The schedule that matters most:

• Two points: 1 to 10 mph over the limit, driving while license suspended, most moving violations.
• Three points: 11 to 15 mph over, careless driving, disobeying a traffic signal or stop sign, improper passing.
• Four points: 16 or more over, drag racing, operating while visibly impaired.
• Six points: reckless driving, OWI, fleeing and eluding, leaving the scene of an injury accident, felonies involving a vehicle.

Twelve points in two years triggers a Secretary of State driver reexamination that can end in a restricted license or a suspension. Insurers pull the record and rate on it independently. Michigan eliminated the old driver responsibility fees in 2018, so the state no longer adds its own surcharge on top, but the insurance effect of a six-point conviction can run for years.

The reason the non-moving plea matters is the points. An amendment to impeding traffic or a defective equipment violation carries zero points, so the record stays clean and the insurer has nothing to rate on.

How a traffic case moves in the 19th District Court

Tickets and traffic misdemeanors written in Dearborn, whether by Dearborn Police or by the Michigan State Police on the Dearborn stretch of I-94 and M-39, are heard at the 19th District Court on Michigan Avenue. Dearborn Heights tickets go to the 20th District Court, Detroit tickets to the 36th District Court, and tickets from Taylor, Livonia, Westland, and Inkster to their own district courts, each of which has a guide on this site.

For a civil infraction, the citation gives you a deadline and three choices: pay it, which admits responsibility; request an informal hearing, where the officer and you appear before a magistrate and neither side has a lawyer; or request a formal hearing, which is a contested proceeding before a judge with the prosecutor present and attorneys on both sides. The negotiation that produces a non-moving amendment usually happens with the city attorney before the formal hearing date, and the citation deadline is the point of no return.

For a misdemeanor, the case follows the criminal track: an arraignment where you enter a plea and bond conditions are set, a pretrial conference where the defense and the city prosecutor discuss the case and the evidence, and then a plea agreement or a trial date. A reckless driving case that becomes a careless driving civil infraction, or a no-insurance case dismissed on proof the policy was in force, is resolved at or before the pretrial. We read the police report, the dash camera footage where it exists, and the Secretary of State record before that conference, because the case is usually decided in the details of the stop.

CDL drivers

Commercial drivers live under a different set of rules. Federal regulations prohibit courts from masking or deferring a conviction for a CDL holder, so the non-moving amendment that resolves a case for most drivers is not available in the same way, and a conviction for a serious traffic violation, which includes 15 or more over, improper lane change, following too closely, and reckless driving, counts toward a 60-day or 120-day disqualification if a second or third one follows within three years. That is true whether the ticket was in the commercial vehicle or your own car. For a driver whose job depends on the license, a ticket that a non-commercial driver would pay is a case worth fighting on the merits, and we treat it that way.

How we handle it

The same attorney handles the matter from the first call through resolution, in English and Arabic. We start with the citation or the complaint, the police report, and your Secretary of State driving record, and we tell you what the charge carries, what the realistic outcomes are in that court, and whether the cost of fighting it is justified by what is at stake. For a two-point ticket with a clean record, we will sometimes tell you to pay it. For anything with jail exposure, a suspension, a CDL, or an immigration consequence, we will not.

Traffic cases connect to the rest of our criminal practice more often than people expect. A stop that produced an OWI charge is handled with our OWI and DUI defense lawyers. A ticket you forgot about that turned into a suspended license and a bench warrant is covered under probation violations and warrants. Everything else sits with our criminal defense attorneys in Dearborn.

This is a focused part of our criminal defense practice. Call (313) 425-5555 or text (313) 362-6122 to talk through your situation.