I don't know any lawyers in SoCal, but I've had a few tickets and can offer some practical advice.
1. Slow down. If he wrote the ticket for 99, you were doing AT LEAST that fast. If someone cut in front of you and you were going 99 on a public highway, it isn't unreasonable to assume that your extreme speed contributed to you not having room to slow down without hitting the other car. In other words, had you been going a more reasonable speed, there would have been no reckless driving, no tailgating, and no illegal lane change - leaving you with a much more manageable speeding ticket.
2. Check your mailbox. If SoCal is anything like NC, your box will be full of lawyer mailings in the next day or so. Trafic Citations around here have nothing at all to do with justice or law enforcement. It's a revenue generator, plain and simple. My most recent experience (less than 3 months ago) was for speeding. I hired a lawyer based on his guarantee price for reducing the violation to a non-moving event, sent him a check, and forgot the whole thing. 2 months later, I got a letter that said he had met with the DA, and inlight of my sterling driving record, yada, yada, yada..........I was found guilty of driving with improper equipment (faulty speedomoter). Same fine as the speeding, but no points and no insurance hike. Well worth the $200 to the lawyer.
3. Stop refering to the officer as a *****. You were speeding, you did tailgate, and you did make an illegal lane change. It's all well and good to do so - I drive much faster than the legal limit often enough myself. What I don't do is blame the cop when I get caught.
I'm not lecturing, and I'm not a hypocrit. I speed, I drive too close when a car is parked in the passing lane. I no longer drive so fast that I am an overt hazard to other drivers (99+ is dangerously fast when other cars inhabit the same stretch of road), and I don't get mad at the cop for doing his job.
