Talk to someone who knows the local system, maybe even a hearing officer, and see if they have a community service option. I'm not big into street racing, but I got a careless driving ticket for not paying attention and blowing through a red light at like 3am. I talked to a hearing officer and she set me up to do STS (sentence to serve), I don't have to pay the $250 fine nor does it go on my record. Hopefully you can do something like that, it may be similar to the deferral people are talking about.