Speeding Tickets and Insurance Rates
In our agency we often get inquiries about Speeding Tickets and if they affect insurance rates. Yes, speeding tickets do impact insurance rates but you can keep them off of your record by following a few simple steps. Read more to learn what to do if you get a speeding ticket and why it is important to keep it off of your record.
Why is it on my Record?
So, you got a speeding ticket. The question we get asked frequently is, “Why is the speeding ticket on my record if I paid it?” Paying a ticket does not keep it off of your driving record. All it does is keep you from going to jail!
Option 1: Defensive Driving
My recommendation if you receive any type of moving violation is that you ask to take defensive driving. It will take up six hours of your day and it will not get you a discount on your insurance, but it will keep a ticket from going on your record.
Option 2: Deferred Adjudication
If you’ve already exhausted the one time a year you can do defensive driving, another option, in Texas, is deferred adjudication. That’s probation. Basically, you’re telling the court, “I’m going to be really good and I’m not going to get any more tickets for the probationary period.” Most probationary periods are for 90 days, but some of them are up to six months. It depends on the jurisdiction where you received the ticket.
The bad news is that you still have to pay for the ticket. But by doing deferred adjudication probation, and as long as you’re good during the probationary period, the ticket will fall off your record.
Option 3: Hire a Traffic Attorney
The third option is to hire a traffic ticket attorney. Most of the time, this will cost anywhere from $75-$150. The traffic ticket attorney is not going to be able to get the fee waived, but they can request that the court allow you to take defensive driving again (even if you’ve already taken it in the previous twelve months.) They can also ask for a deferred adjudication again, and you will probably get a longer probationary period the second time around. If they win, once you pay the fee to the court and your attorney, the ticket will be off your record.
Why is it Important to Keep Ticket Off my Record?
The reason is because you can – but you can’t keep an accident off your record. Insurance companies look at two things when deciding your insurance rate: moving violations and accidents. If you have one accident, your rate will go up probably 20-30%. If you have two accidents, you can expect it to go up 50%. Now if you have two accidents and a ticket, you can expect your rate to go up substantially. So as long as you can get the tickets removed from your record, they will not impact your insurance rates. That’s why it’s important to do what you can to keep moving violations off of your driving record.