Speeding ticket excuse - in an ideal world, this is something you won't ever need. It should be easy enough, right? If you don't exceed the speed limit, you won't get stopped by a police officer and you definitely won't get a citation. But let's be real, almost everyone has gotten a speeding ticket at one point or another.

Some people speed because they just don't care about the limit. Some people speed because they want to get places faster. Some people speed for the thrill of it. Some people...well, they just don't pay much attention. This last category is the one most likely to affect those that don't regularly speed. It's almost inevitable that at some point everyone will fail to notice a change in the posted limit, or just get distracted by something and slip over the limit. So no matter how good your intentions or how closely you watch your speed, there's some risk that you'll get tagged for speeding.

If you do, the natural desire will be to try to get out of it. There's nothing wrong with that, in and of itself, but you must be cognizant of how you're going about it. Officers of the law hear many, many excuses, and offering them one of the tired out lines could shut down any chance you have of getting out of the ticket. In many cases, especially if you are a fairly straight-laced type, the best bet is just to be honest with the officer. Explain that you do your best to follow posted speed limits but that you were distracted by something or you missed a recent change in the limit.

If you have a clean driving history, and the officer believes you are telling the truth, there is a very good chance that you will receive a warning instead of a ticket. This is one reason why it's so important to avoid citations - anything on your driving record has an extremely detrimental effect on your chances of getting out of future moving violations with a simple warning.

If you do decide to try to make up an excuse, you would do well to come up with something original and believable. The cops have already heard all of the easy excuses, so you'll probably have to get a little creative if you're going to get through to them. There are a whole host of excuses that should be avoided all together, but that's a topic for another day.

One quick note on honesty. You probably should avoid being too direct about an admission of guilt. This could come back to haunt you if you do get a ticket and need to challenge it in court. It's best if you can figure out a way to admit a lack of judgement, or a lapse in your attention to your speed without actually admitting to the crime.

So, we've seen that when pulled over by a cop, the best approach if you want to attempt to get out of the ticket on the spot is to be forward and honest and simply explain how you came to be speeding. Otherwise, you may be forced to resort to the worst possible option, one that will probably garner little favor with the officer - a speeding ticket excuse.