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Traffic School OnlineCheck to see if you are eligible for online traffic school. Many jurisdictions such as California, Florida, Virginia and Texas have a provision allowing you to attend traffic school for a speeding ticket. It is usually in your best interest to accept if the option is available. Normally you cannot contest the speeding ticket and then take the school. You will still have to pay the fine, but the amount you will save on your insurance premiums will be worth the effort. This may sound like a contradiction to my previous advice to always fight your speeding ticket. However, your goal is to keep the ticket off your record and avoid the increase in insurance premiums. Don’t pay the speeding ticket and then have your state DOT notify you that you are eligible for traffic school. Typically you are only eligible to attend once every eighteen months and only two points are removed. If you wait, everything will be posted to your MVR. While you may still be eligible for traffic school, the traffic ticket will show on your record for auto insurance rate increase. Each state has different requirements so be sure to check with the DMV. What you want to avoid is the speeding ticket appearing on your record. Many judges have the option of dismissing your speeding ticket upon payment of the fine and completion of traffic school. By talking to the judge’s secretary you can find out if this will be reported to the state. Always try to negotiate for this option. Then the points are never posted and your insurance carrier is not alerted to your driving habits. Traffic school normally consists of eight hours of classroom instruction. The classes are available at most technical schools and are held at night or on Saturday. This is time well spent since you will be saving between $1000 to $3000 on your insurance premiums over the next three years. In other words you are being paid over $100 per hour to attend school. Even with this tremendous financial incentive people avoid traffic school because they see it as punishment. Because of this resentment I feel that these types of classes are ineffective in improving driving behavior. Fortunately many states have now approved online traffic schools. By allowing drivers to learn at their own pace on the Internet retention is enhanced and resentment is reduced
Online traffic schools have been well received by most government agencies. While I believe that these online schools do improve driving behavior that is not the reason they are being approved by the states. Speeding ticket fines are a five billion dollar industry in the United States. This industry would be threatened if drivers did not have an economical and readily accessible method of keeping traffic tickets off their record. If all speeding tickets were reported many drivers would either lose their license or be unable to afford the enormous increase in their insurance premiums. The resulting political fallout in the cities and towns that depend on fines for their budget would deprive many career mayors and police chiefs of their positions. The following is a list of states that offer the option of attending an online traffic school:
California,
Virginia,
Oregon,
Alabama,
Delaware,
Wyoming,
Florida,
Texas,
Nevada,
Alaska
New Mexico,
Maryland,
Missouri
Click on the link below to check if your particular court. Be sure to get approval from the traffic court in order to prevent the ticket from being posted to your record.
Speeding Tickets and Insurance PremiumsSpeeding tickets will increase the cost of your auto insurance. That is why it is usually better to take traffic school rather than fighting your ticket and taking a chance on losing in court. You will also be surprised at the money you can save by shopping around, especially if you have a teenage driver. We recommend the following site:
CLICK HERE FOR TEENAGE DRIVER EDUCATION
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