Careless driving charges can be as simple as making a lane change too suddenly all the way to almost criminal negligence where someone is seriously injured. For serious charges where real people are actually harmed, it's best to get a lawyer's advice to see how do deal with the situation. This focuses on more minor careless driving changes that can be dealt with in court.

What can be done about a careless driving citation in an accident?

Sometimes when you rear end someone else in an automobile accident you can be given a ticket for careless driving. This basically means that you were not operating the vehicle in a safe manner. The strategy with this type of infraction is to ask the judge if a following too closely would be a more fair infraction. This type of ticket would be much more minor than careless driving in most jurisdictions.

Another type of careless driving is given when someone is operating their vehicle much like someone who is drunk, but the person is really not drunk. Sometimes this is done due to medications or the lack thereof and other reasons. But sometimes people who are perfectly innocent get this type of ticket.

What happens is they see something in the road like a board with nails in it and are swerving to avoid these objects. To the cop it looks like you are operating the vehicle in an unsafe manner. In reality you are trying to ensure safety by preventing a blown out tire which can be the basis of the argument. In this case it's probably best to get some sort of photos as evidence of your driving to have a better defense.