I've had a lot of tickets as a professional driver. I
always plead not guilty and request a trial unless I
am ridiculously at fault, and even sometimes then... 
You do automatically get dismissed if the officer
doesn't show, about 30-50 percent of the time,
sometimes the paperwork will be lost, you autowin
again! You should also ask for an appeal if you lose,
for whatever reason "I didn't feel well that day and
didn't put my best foot forward" or something of that
nature. Delay, delay, delay! That's the key. You
should always get extensions or request new dates just
before you're due for anything, arraignment, trial,
responses, appeal, etc. This makes it hard on the cop
who might show up and find you blew it off, only to
learn he's gotta waste his time again to show again.
He will likely not waste his time again. He might be
killed God forbid, after all, he is a cop, you might
leave the state, or the country. On that note use
"I'll be out of town or I'm in school full time" as
valid excuses for extensions. Also if you get another
moving violation in the same area, you can get them
heard together, and maybe goto traffic school once for
both of them, or at the very least, dramatic fine
reductions for the two combined. I was dead to rights
on a red light failure to stop and went to trial,
lost, got an appeal, and then 2 weeks later the judge
called me at home, said the paperwork had been lost
and he dismissed the whole thing. Sometimes the judge
will just throw it out outright at the arraignment or
the trial because the paperwork is wrong, maybe the
street address is bad or something, but that varies
greatly by judge. Don't forget, delay, delay, delay!
On that note, I must now take traffic school on a
speeding ticket from December 1999.
Good Luck