Showed respect for the court. Judge asked about my perfect record and let me off.
It can happen.

Did the judge reduce it to a parking ticket or dismiss it?

Him and the court. Plus my only ticket and it was for 10 over.

pleading your case. The judge may be required to follow fine guidelines. Or a toss up if they’re a hard case or tending to lenient.

In some states, if you contest it the officer needs to appear, and that rarely happens.
Also just for making the effort of contesting, it's pretty often the case that you'll get a reduced fine or have it dismissed.
Of course YMMV and the "is it worth it?" question depends on how much an afternoon showing up to do this in person is worth to you compared with the ticket's cost.

Rather than contesting the violation itself. Almost every young driver I knew knew they could get their ticket cost reduced somewhat automatically the first time. Which traffic violations are reported to insurance companies varies by state. Perhaps if you named the stat, somebody with particularized knowledge can help the determination. Here, if you looked on the back of the ticket it gave you three options. Agree and pay, contest in court, and plead circumstances in court. The latter is what I’d generally look to do on first ticket where I admit the infraction. One might get lucky and get the infraction reduced or the accusation of violation withdrawn, which would be great in these days of more aggressive insurance “point” systems.

I had never had a speeding ticket before. The judge acknowledged that but still fined me, but at a substantially reduced rate (I can't remember now how much since it was so long ago.) Additionally, if I went to a one-day driving class (which I did), it kept the ticket off my record. This was in California in the 80's.

In Florida, you can take a short online course and the points go away. That is what will affect the insurance

If they do raise the rates, get quotes from other companies. Usually the other companies will lure you in with a good price then raise the rates after that. You should always get three quotes every year for auto insurance. Forget "brand" loyalty, that flew out the window years ago.

rate increase. Moving violations can be costly.

My cousin, who was caught speeding, went to traffic court and they reduced his fine and the charge even though he was totally guilty.

“Do you know how fast you were going?”, the police officer asked her. “ How would I know, with two screaming kids in the back?”, she answered. He gave her a ticket for not wearing a safety belt, although she was. It was a much lower fine and no points.

The officer is going to likely not going to be very happy about being there given they already reduced it by 6 mph

maybe he can find out if your state offers diversion.
it’s always worth going, cuz cops rarely bother to show up in court.
(i’ve done both.)

1 ticket shouldnt affect insurance. esp a small 1 like this. i have had a few fender benders in my day, and a couple piddly tickets. but havent had trouble w insurance. i’m never gonna b drunk driving 100 mph in the wrong lane.

about your speeding ticket, Lucky!

The situation depends on a number of factors, among them, where and when the offense occurred, the court, and the availability of the ticketing officer.

It varies from State to State. The worst ticket I ever got was for missing the "No left turn" sign. I had insurance, but didn't put the new insurance card in the car. The cop in question was a real bastard, he had a huge collection of offenders waiting for him that day in court. He obviously loved writing tickets and was very rude about it. The judge claimed he had no discretion, and fined me $800, even though I brought proof that I had been insured at the time but simply didn't have the card in my glove compartment.

The outcome generally depends, again, on the state, the court, the locality and the law.

I have had tickets dismissed because the cop didn't show up, and in one case, because the cop did show up, but recommended the case be dismissed because he had something to do. He was actually a nice guy. It involved a fender bender, and he gave both parties a ticket, and he dismissed both tickets. This made the other party happy as well as me, and we both apologized for our roles to one another for our respective roles in the whole thing.

When my wife was young and driving with me, I would sometimes get pulled over for bullshit reasons but not ticketed but "warned." I sometimes thought it was about them wanting to check my wife out, because as a young woman she seemed to inspire a lot of unwanted male attention. (I'm not quite sure she wanted my attention, but she seems to have relented.) I almost never got pulled over like that when driving alone, but when she was in the car, it happened several times.

I haven't had a ticket in many years, probably because I bought my car because of its excellent fuel economy, which is at its best when running on cruise control. I set it to do the speed limit, which annoys a lot of people who don't want to do the speed limit, who tailgate and even go to the extreme lengths to do dangerous passes illegally. I slow down and let them by. A few times I've come upon these people getting tickets when I drove down the road, which I confess leads to some smirking on my part.

My car has that automatic adaptive cruise control that prevents me from tailgating and which stops or slows the car when obstructions or slowing cars in front. This is good because I'm an old fart.

A person who claims to be a friend of mine, suggested that the best way for me to deal with an eye problem I was having was to drive to the ophthalmologist with both eyes closed to allow my brain to adjust. I wasn't quite sure it was good medical advice, but perhaps the adaptive cruise control would have prevented a bad outcome. However, because I found the idea to be somewhat dubious, I drove with my eyes open.

sounds like a real asshole.