No matter how vigilant and careful you are, chances are that one day, you’ll get a ticket for speeding. Around 41 million speeding tickets are issued each year, and the National Highway Traffic Security Administration estimates that the collective cost of speeding and related accidents amounts to around $40.4 billion every year. On a personal level, speeding tickets can put points on your license, and if it’s really bad, it can even be enough to suspend your license altogether. That’s not to mention the often exorbitant fees, no matter the extremity of the offense. Every day, 112,328 people are slapped with an average of about $150 fine for speeding.

Since speeding tickets are practically an inevitability of life, it is important to be prepared for fighting a traffic ticket. Check out these tips for how to handle getting pulled over, and tips for traffic court:

Check your attitude! Police officers are human beings with hearts and minds, and can be appealed to just like anyone else. You want the officer to like you, so start by making sure not to give any sass.

Turn your car off when you get pulled over, in addition to turning the interior lights on. Be extremely polite and do what the officer tells you to.

Plead your case, but if the officer doesn’t let you off, try to leave the scene as non-memorable as possible. Since your next steps will be in the courtroom, you won’t want the officer to remember much of your encounter.

Call the office at work, and try to set up a meeting with him or her. They have the power to fully drop your ticket, so try to appeal to them by bridging the officer civilian gap with a personal story.

Delay the court date — don’t lie, but continue to push the date for as long as possible. Again, the less the officer remembers of you, the better.

Taking a ticket to court isn’t the worst thing — enlist a traffic ticket lawyer to your cause and defend yourself as best you can! If the officer doesn’t show up to the court date, you’re automatically out of a ticket.

You and your traffic lawyer are sure to get the best of traffic court with these tips — fighting a traffic ticket might just be your way out of jacked insurance premiums and expensive fees.