Fight it
As you seem fairly trenchant in your observations that you may be in the right, I would suggest that you simply fight the ticket.
As already stated, the repercussions may make the situation worse rather than better vis-a-vis traffic school (I'm not sure what the situation is in your home state) but the simple fact is that by merely turning up you may get off based on the fact that the booking officer may not show! Personally I always advocate to everyone that they should automatically fight tickets if there's a sound basis for arguing that it was handed out incorrectly, because cops are only human, they do make mistakes, and some get way too carried away with their authority on the road and nab people on the flimsiest excuse.
I've lived in the USA for 10 years and have been ticketed twice. Both occasions I fought the ticket, both occasions I won. The first occasion was when I got booked for supposedly 'running' a red light (one of my personal pet hates after observing driving habits in this country for a decade) in a situation when I was driving a well loaded van in torrential Florida weather, got caught in no-man's land at an intersection trying to decide whether to stop at a yellow or not, and decided with the load I had on and the prevailing conditions that I stood a chance of losing control if I braked hard - so I went through. The light didn't change to red until I was half way through the intersection, yet I still got the ticket. I later explained the situation to the judge, cited my 25 year exemplary driving record, pointed out that the officer was sitting parked in a Walgreens' lot on the other side of the intersection in driving rain and couldn't have had a clear picture of the scene - end result, I got off. Had I simply accepted the 'inevitable', as most people do, I would have been hit with a hefty fine and had a nasty blot on my record.
The second time around I received a ticket for supposedly changing lanes in such a way that I impeded another car's progress. It was a crap ticket handed out by a hot-headed novice cop who didn't know his own rule book - I was accelerating away from the vehicle in question when I changed lanes, which is what I always do in tight situations - I don't like being forced to brake, I extend the same courtesy to others. The cop later lied in court by claiming he was directly behind me (IE parallel with the vehicle I impeded) as I switched lanes, thus claiming a close up view of the 'hazardous' manner with which I switched lanes. But he also claimed that I forced the car into braking hard, a fact he emphasized by stating that he saw the car's brake lights light up as I switched lanes. As I pointed out to the judge, how could he have been parallel to the car, yet seen it's brake lights come on? Turned out though that my argument was a moot point - the judge verified something else that I thought had seemed dubious - I'd been booked with a highway violation while driving on a state road, and on that basis he threw the ticket out.
I would also point out that my sister-in-law, who happens to be a cop, told me that half the time police officers can't be bothered to turn up in court on a given day either because they're too busy elsewhere or are simply having a day off and don't want to take away from their leisure time. You may thus find that you stand a 50/50 chance of getting a break even without having to argue your case.
I don't advocate that anyone simply fight a ticket just because they can - I firmly believe in the old adage 'if you do the crime, do the time'. But I also firmly believe that far too many people simply accept tickets as a done deal, when in actual fact they stand an excellent chance of having matters overturned simply by showing up.
