What To Do With Tickets

By Author: Marcus Stalder
Total Articles: 491
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Some years ago, there was a survey involving thousands of real people of all ages. They were asked a number of questions about all the different vehicles on the road. One of the more interesting findings was the belief that manufacturers always fit more powerful engines into red cars. It seems the average person notices red cars as they zoom past at 100 mph. This also leads to the urban myth that insurers set higher rates for red cars. In fact, color is generally ignored. Insurers are rather boring that way. The real reasons for higher rates are the make and model. Sporty cars have higher ratings because their drivers go faster and crash into things more often. Ask a psychologist about the color red and you will hear all about the association with excitement. Perhaps more importantly, red gets you noticed, even by the traffic police who are more likely to give you a ticket. So since the buyers who pick red are usually full of testosterone or trying to remember what it was like to be young, they all drive these cars faster and more recklessly.

So, when you are stopped for a moving violation, you smile, grovel and wish ...
... you lived in a banana republic where a quick bribe would see you on your way. Despite your best efforts to appear sympathetic on your mercy dash to the hospital, a ticket comes out of the book. You grit your teeth and thank the officer, driving away carefully to avoid further trouble. What should you do? The majority of insurers increase premiums when you collect a ticket. Except some will listen to explanations. If your mercy dash to the hospital could be shown as real, you might get some sympathy and a stay of execution. Otherwise you are into the court system. Fighting tickets means hiring an attorney and so is only worth your while if you might lose your license and then face even higher premiums when you come back to driving. But there is one more avenue to investigate. Some states have a driver improvement program. If you pick up a ticket with four or less points, you can volunteer to go through a course designed to remind you how to drive safely.

This is a little like anger management courses. You either go through about 6 hours of training with a certified instructor or, if you are lucky, there's an online course with tests to pass. In states which offer these courses, the cost is deliberately kept low to encourage people to agree. So you pay the fine plus a fee of around $100. This is usually less than the expected premium rate increase. As a reward for retraining, the points are removed. Before you get too excited, this is only an option for tickets with a small number of points and you cannot go through these courses every month or so. You only get the points waived if you stay out of trouble for a year and more. This is good news when the car insurance quotes come in for renewal. Car insurance is expensive enough without having to worry about points on tickets. Always check your state for a program to avoid them.