Disclaimer: not legal advice, I am not a lawyer only speaking from personal experience.

Over the years I have had a bunch of speeding tickets including a few reckless with the biggest being 88/45. I’ve been to court in richmond, chesterfield, FarmVille and Blacksburg. Each time I’ve gone to court without a lawyer. I dress nicely with a tie and jacket and always respectful of the judge. I plead “no contest, at the mercy of the court”. They look at my driving record and determine my sentencing. I done driving school or community service to remove my charges. The biggest reckless ticket, he reduced it to improper equipment or something and gave me a 300$ fine. I groaned at that and he said “I can give you no fine and you’ll have the reckless ticket raising your insurance for the next 10 years or have the 300$ fine, it’s up to you”. Needless to say I took the fine.

I think that because I got all of those charges removed/reduced instead of just paying the fine and not going to court, my driving record stayed pretty clean which is why my sentencing was never too severe. If I was a bettin man, then if this is your first offense, I’d bet you’ll get assigned driving school to reduce the charge. It’s a turd that takes up your whole weekend but it’s better then the reckless charge.