Of Speeding and traffic school and Insurance (Park Ridge, Lincoln: attorney, DMV)

[aamert]

Simple question:

Will paying and going through the driving school affect my Insurance rate?

I got ticketed in Park Ridge. Driving at 48 in 30mph zone. I have three options:

1. pay the ticket $75
2. pay for traffic school $115 (on the ticket it says, avoid a conviction on your driving record, plead guilty, register for traffic school...)
3. Contest the ticket. For which i have to pay court costs regardless of If i am convicted or not. which would run to be around $120+ticket

I am thinking if I take the school will my Insurance rate get affected? or the avoidance of conviction is just for state purposes?

Anyone have experience in this regard?

[lincolnparker]

The best option is traffic school. The whole purposes of doing a traffic school is to avoid a conviction. As such, you do not plead guilty. After traffic school, the case against you will be dropped, which means that the court will not even bother to prosecute you. Then you can get your court record expunged and the insurance companies will never be able to find out about your experience with law enforcement.

Originally Posted by aamert

Simple question:

Will paying and going through the driving school affect my Insurance rate?

I got ticketed in Park Ridge. Driving at 48 in 30mph zone. I have three options:

1. pay the ticket $75
2. pay for traffic school $115 (on the ticket it says, avoid a conviction on your driving record, plead guilty, register for traffic school...)
3. Contest the ticket. For which i have to pay court costs regardless of If i am convicted or not. which would run to be around $120+ticket

I am thinking if I take the school will my Insurance rate get affected? or the avoidance of conviction is just for state purposes?

Anyone have experience in this regard?

[sharkylittleton]

Originally Posted by lincolnparker

The best option is traffic school. The whole purposes of doing a traffic school is to avoid a conviction. As such, you do not plead guilty. After traffic school, the case against you will be dropped, which means that the court will not even bother to prosecute you. Then you can get your court record expunged and the insurance companies will never be able to find out about your experience with law enforcement.

Lincolnparker is correct. Take the traffic school and be done with it.

The rules must have changed since my wilder haydays. I used to show up to court, request court supervision, pay my fine and be on my way. Depending on the severity of the offense, court supervision ranged from 3-6 months or longer. As long as you are a good little driver and do not get a ticket during that period, the case was automatically dropped against you for completing terms of the agreement. I wonder what happened to that.

[Avengerfire]

Register for traffic school.

[ajolotl]

I learned the hard way. Got a ticket for an illegal U-turn and a speeding ticket. Ignored the traffic school option and just paid the ticket. State Farm charged me six points (the equivalent of two at-fault accidents) and my rate went from about 800/year to 3600/year. Just now (three years later) is it coming off my record. Switching insurance companies helped a tiny bit but not much -- they all seem to use the same formula. As everyone else has said -- go to traffic school!

[Drover]

Originally Posted by lincolnparker

The best option is traffic school. The whole purposes of doing a traffic school is to avoid a conviction. As such, you do not plead guilty. After traffic school, the case against you will be dropped, which means that the court will not even bother to prosecute you. Then you can get your court record expunged and the insurance companies will never be able to find out about your experience with law enforcement.

Not quite. You still plead guilty and you still have a conviction on your record. In fact, you are only eligible for driving school if you plead guilty. It's an enticement to avoid trial -- the state's way of saying "save us some money and we'll do the same for you."

The difference is that if you go to traffic school, while you will still have a conviction on your record, it will not show up on your DMV driving abstract. And it's your driving abstract that's made available to the public (for a fee that is) and it's what your insurance company uses to set and adjust your insurance rates. Also, if you violate the terms of your court supervision & traffic school arrangement, such as getting another moving violation before the term of supervision expires, not only will your second ticket show up on your driving abstract, so will the first ticket that otherwise would have been kept off.

So the bottom line is, it's worth your time and the extra few bucks to go to traffic school. It will save you hundreds in insurance premiums over the next few years.

[lincolnparker]

If you absolutely do not want to do traffic school, nor do you want to have a conviction on your record, and you are willing to pay big bucks for a great attorney, I'd say go get an attorney. If you do not have a prior, the chance of getting a conviction is about 1%.

[aamert]

I think I will do the traffic school option.. Hopefully It wont show up on my record for insurance purposes.

and yes the option for going to traffic school says that by checking that box you plead guilty.

[lincolnparker]

Interesting. I guess the traffic court operates differently from criminal courts where you do not have to plead anything if given the option of going into some type of educational program.

Originally Posted by aamert

I think I will do the traffic school option.. Hopefully It wont show up on my record for insurance purposes.

and yes the option for going to traffic school says that by checking that box you plead guilty.

[Lovegun]

Originally Posted by ajolotl

I learned the hard way. Got a ticket for an illegal U-turn and a speeding ticket. Ignored the traffic school option and just paid the ticket. State Farm charged me six points (the equivalent of two at-fault accidents) and my rate went from about 800/year to 3600/year. Just now (three years later) is it coming off my record. Switching insurance companies helped a tiny bit but not much -- they all seem to use the same formula. As everyone else has said -- go to traffic school!

Odd. I've had two speeding tickets and my insurance has barely gone up. I didn't think insurance companies actively searched for points unless you make a claim.

Anyway, I would take the online driving course. You pay an extra $20 free but its very easy and you can take it in multiple sessions.