That's the situation in which I currently find myself. It is why I advocate the overly preventative approach. Personally I think your best bet if you do get a ticket and you cannot afford a lawyer is to pray that the cop doesn't show for the court date. The last time my wife got a speeding ticket, we got to watch all of the other traffic cases come before us. Even the people who brought lawyers didn't have much luck, they all were found guilty anyway. The cases involving speeding were pretty much open and shut. The cops either paced the defendants involved, or used radar guns with the proper certifications. They literally went through every excuse you could possibly hear in such cases and the judge had a quick and heavy response to all of them.
In Maryland, if the judge is nice to you, you might get the opportunity to take a traffic safety class to remove any assessed points from your record, assuming you "plead guilty with an explanation" at trial. This was the option we took with my wife's ticket, as it was cheaper than the insurance hit we would have taken. Of course, she was going 46 in a 30 in a residential area, we got very "lucky" indeed.
In our Parish (I live in Louisiana) my husband has gotten some speeding tickets over the years as well as a couple of my sons. He goes and talks to the D.A. and many times the D.A. will lower the fine and my husband has gotten community service most all the time. I do have to say sometimes the tickets were not deserved, and sometimes the issuing officer did not show up.