Avantadrive_Original

and that's why you won't use them? seems like a pretty silly reason

diagnosticator1

More often than not, a traffic lawyer will get the ticket dismissed or reduced. The cost is a lot less than you will pay in fines and increased insurance. With a lawyer representing you, to protect your rights, you won't just be a cash cow for the jurisdiction that issued the ticket. Seek a lawyer focusing on traffic law in the area for that District Court.

Blueeyes728

Oh there's a shock a jerk who probably breaks the law who didn't want something that can catch him breaking the law calling cops pigs. Degenerate.

Blueeyes728

Unfortunately that's not true. I watched an attorney today get the same thing for their client that I got with no representation. A fine and still got the points on my license.

Redd

Depends on all the details. Typically, if you have a "safe/good driver" discount of 10%, you will lose that, and get a 10% surcharge, for a 20% total increase possible. If it was out-of-state, it may not get reported. Or, you may be able to take a six-hour driving safety course to get the points removed -or- the 10% increase removed. All depends on where you are. Find a local traffic school or place that offers the safety classes, they usually know what is possible, and timing (the incident, the conviction date, the class date) are all important.

In many small towns if you hire a lawyer, he'll ask the judge to take a plea to an equipment violation (i.e. broken headlight) and let you pay that instead of arguing over a speeding ticket. But if you were doing 25 over the limit, that's usually reckless driving and less likely to see any bargain.

All depends on where you are, where you were, what you did.

In most states a carrier needs "cause" to drop you and one ticket wouldn't do it. But, they are also usually allowed to drop 2% of all insured for no stated reason, and those are usually the ones they've either paid a lot for, or feel are riskiest.

Since the insurance surcharge (and discount loss) continues for four years, you're probably looking at the ticket fine, PLUS four years of insurance increases. Compare that to a lawyer as an option.

superswiss

If you take traffic school or the ticket gets dismissed it will never show up on your record. I'm with Geico. I've had several speeding tickets. I managed to do traffic school or get them dismissed except for one. It was too much over the limit, so the options were limited and it ended up my record. Lost the safe driver discount and ticket was on my policy on the next renewal. Stayed there for three years until it dropped off my record at which point the safe driver discount was automatically reinstated. I'm clean as a whistle again. I don't even remember by how much the premium went up. It's the price of admission for having a fun fast car. Don't get caught. If you do get caught, do your time and be done with it.

hqbmw1@gmail.com

Regardless of your not reporting your policy number when you called, due to caller ID, they most likely knew who was calling. Did you call from a phone known to be on record on the account or from an unknown number?

If you called from the number on record for the policy, they would know who was calling.

Nvg

Thank you so much for your comment! I found it really helpful. I was just wondering if you could possibly provide some more information on how you went about getting your tickets dismissed by taking traffic school. Did you have to contact Geico about this? And when you mentioned one of your tickets being too much over the limit would 20 over count as being too much? Again thanks for your comment!

superswiss

Oh boy, 5 year old post being brought back from the dead. Traffic school is an option that's being given when you pay the fine. You can request traffic school if you are eligible, pay the ticket plus the cost of traffic school. The ticket doesn't get dismissed. You still have to pay the fine, but it won't end up on your record. I'm assuming you got a speeding ticket, so read the instructions on the back for how to request traffic school. Here in CA if I remember correctly the limit for traffic school eligibility is less than 25 mph over the speed limit, and the last traffic school you took has to be at least 18 months ago.

First step, though is wait until the ticket gets filed with the court. You can usually look it up online with the court and you are supposed to get a letter about 2 weeks ahead of the court date on your ticket. Until it shows up in the court's database, no charges have been filed against you. Once it shows up you can contest it in writing, pay the fine or pay the fine and request traffic school. If you contest it in writing, there's a chance it gets dismissed if the officer doesn't respond in writing within 30 days. There's about a 2/3 chance in CA that this happens because the officers are not paid overtime to respond, whereas they are paid overtime to appear in court. So a lot of officers don't respond when you contest in writing and then the ticket gets automatically dismissed. If they do respond and you are found guilty, then you pay the fine and can request traffic school at that time. So there is no downside to contesting it. You don't tell your insurance company anything. They will never know about the ticket until it shows up on your driving record.

But again the first step is to see if charges are actually being filed. I'm saying this because I got a speeding ticket in October 2019. The officer field it with the court, but the court rejected the court date he put on the ticket as being too early and sent it back to the officer for a new court date. The officer never responded with a new court date, so the ticket ended up never getting filed. They have 12 months to file a ticket, so last October the statue of limitation expired and the ticket is no longer valid. Sometimes problems solve themselves :-).