An infraction doesn’t count as a criminal record. Because an infraction is so minor, many people represent themselves on infractions. However, sometimes it makes sense to hire a lawyer if you don’t want to appear in court, and you just want to get the fine paid and done with.

Here’s the statute:

14-3.1. Infraction defined; sanctions.
(a) An infraction is a noncriminal violation of law not punishable by
imprisonment. Unless otherwise provided by law, the sanction for a person found responsible for an infraction is a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars ($100.00).

The proceeds of penalties for infractions are payable to the county in which the infraction occurred for the use of the public schools.

The woman drove her BMW X5 SUV into the parking lot, apparently hit the gas, not the break, while pulling into a parking spot, and ran over two parked cars.  Fortunately no one was hurt, but the woman, thinking she was unobserved, fled the scene in her car.

The whole thing was captured on a surveillance camera, and uploaded to YouTube where it has received hundreds of thousands of hits.

The good news is that a Hyundai dealership has stepped up to give one of the people whose car was crushed a brand new 2010 Hyundai.  The woman has been arrested, and has her court date set for December.

But for the purposes of the present conviction, a PJC is like a “get out of jail free card” in the sense that the defendant, so long as he doesn’t get in any further trouble, will not need to undergo any sentencing or punishment.

If the person gets into further trouble, then the person may be sentenced for the conviction that was PJC’ed plus the new crime. Typically this period of time is three years.

Prayer for Judgment Continued is particularly valuable in traffic cases.  A household can have one PJC every three years, and no more than 2 PJCs in a 5 year period. The PJC means that points will not be added to person’s insurance rates, nor will points be added to the individual’s driving record.

Usually at the time of your plea, you will be advised of the conditions required under the PJC.  But generally, those conditions amount to not getting into further criminal or traffic trouble for the period of time in question.

Recently, President Obama held a texting-while-driving summit to highlight the problem of our roads made more dangerous by the use of cell phones.  Make no mistake about it: texting a friend while driving a car is without a doubt an extremely dangerous activity. A car is a dangerous object, and one that’s being driven without full attention to the highway can become a deadly weapon.

The fact of the matter, however, is that any texting-while-driving law will be difficult to enforce. Unless the police officer can testify that he did see the defendant text while driving, there may be no way to get a conviction.

The fact that a lot of teenagers from Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and so forth will get accused of texting-while-driving is going to put a lot of parents in bad moods.

For a different opinion on why texting-while-driving laws may be stupid, here’s Radley Balko writing in the U.S. News and World Report

If you or your child are stopped for texting while driving in Wake County or surrounding communities, feel free to call me at (919) 352-9411 any time on weekdays, weekends or Holidays.  Or email me at info@chetson.com.