My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: Washington
My wife got a ticket for failing to display the Discover Pass. The pass fell on to the seat and was visible from the outside, but not hanging on the mirror. From our previous experience this ticket will likely be dismissed when she tells the story and shows the pass in court (happened to us once before). But the hearing date is scheduled on a date that we will be out of town. One obvious thing is to request a continuance, though that is a bit of a hassle - the court does not answer the phone, so it will require a trip to the court. Can be done.
The thing I want to ask in the forum is that the hearing was scheduled late in violation on IRLJ 2.6 (a) 2, because the notification of the hearing was mailed to us well beyond the 21 day period (we mailed the request on 10/12, the notice of hearing is dated 11/14). IRLJ says that the infraction can be dismissed if we show prejudice because of the delay. I always wanted to know what the heck this really means. The only thing I can think of is the fact that we will be out of town on the scheduled hearing date, but I have feeling that this is not enough of a prejudice (the scheduled hearing date is just over 60 days from the infraction date, I think the limit is 120). I would love to hear of an example of prejudice you either think could apply, or that was successfully used in a WA court.
The other thing I would like to learn is what are the risks if we try to contest this by mail/written declaration. I know that it's not as good as being in court in person, but this case seems "fairly simple", so we might try it out to see. If it is not ruled in our favor, though, do we have any right to appeal in person? If not, I think we'll just do the continuance and hearing in person, despite the inconvenience.

