What if court is closed on my traffic ticket court date?

I’ve had this happen a few times where people paid tickets because they felt they didn’t have any other option. They have a traffic ticket court date, but the court ends up being closed. This is particularly what was going on during COVID and even during any tropical storm.

They want to solve the problem so they just pay the ticket online to the New Orleans traffic court, thinking that they didn’t know what else to do. This is a pretty dangerous thing to do if a moving violation is going to impact your record. If you’re a CDL driver, you drive for Uber, or if you drive for any part of your duties at work- it’s a real possibility that somebody is checking your driving record.

When you pay your traffic ticket online, that is the same as pleading guilty.

Most traffic tickets are speeding tickets, failure to obey a traffic sign, red light, stop sign, and all those are moving violations. Moving violations go on your record and can raise insurance rates and cause employment issues down the road.

If the court is closed, the court will issue you a new court date if the court is closed.

They will either issue the new date by mail or they’re going to give you a time period to come in and get a new date. If for whatever reason you wouldn’t be able to go to the court because you won’t be in town or you’re moving out the area, you can hire somebody to handle it for you. It probably doesn’t cost that much money, particularly compared to the consequences of taking a moving violation and depending on what kind of work you do.

So if you have any questions about your traffic ticket court date, you think the court is closed, and ask yourself “what should I do?”, shoot me a text. I’m happy to point you in the right direction.