Advice on Fighting "Failure to Yield to Pedestrian" Ticket

**Jovani Cardenas** · 06-19-2012, 05:08 PM

My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: New York

Hi, I'm writing here to ask for advice on how to fight a "fail to yield to pedestrian," ticket. As I was driving on my daily commute I had to make a right turn at an intersection. I stopped at the red light, and turned on my right signal indicator. Next after the light turned green I began making the right turn slowly, however there were some people in the crosswalk crossing and so I wait until they pass and then when the road is clear again I finish making the right turn (some notes, I was not in the crosswalk while waiting to turn so I didn't even block the passageway of the crosswalk because stopping halfway into a turn in the middle of a crosswalk would make no sense).In front were police officers stopping cars and they stopped me too. I had no problem as I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. The officer wasn't rude, he told me that recent there were studies that on that particular street there were many accidents involving pedestrians and I was listening to him and nowhere in my mind did it occur that I was going to get ticketed for that. I give him my license and registration as requested and then he comes back with my license with a ticket around it and I ask what is that for. He said "fail to yield to pedestrian" and I said "what? there was nobody there." The conversation went on with no hostility between him nor I, and he tells me there's directions on how to plead not guilty for the ticket. I searched it up and this is points to my license. I don't want to get points on my license, I believe I was given the ticket just because he looked at me and knew I was young. There is no way I failed to yield to a pedestrian as I even stopped before making the turn and slowly kept driving straight ahead until the officer stopped me by putting his hand up and told me to pull over because there were multiple cars stopped on that street. If anybody can give any advice on how to fight this ticket it would be much appreciated. I am 18 and this is my first ticket and I certainly do not want to get points on my license. I sent in the ticket pleading not guilty so I am waiting for a hearing date as of today. I am also a little nervous about this because I'm afraid the judge will just side with the officer. I searched this topic up extensively and all of them lost, but none of them were like my situation. Should I get an attorney? Please any advice or help would be gladly appreciated.