It Pays To Fight A Ticket

In “It pays to avoid a tick­et – or fight one” MSN Money details prac­ti­cal and fru­gal tech­nic­ques for fight­ing a speed­ing ticket–and there­by sav­ing thou­sands of dol­lars on your insur­ance rates. 

The best advice is sim­ply not to speed, at least not brazen­ly. But if you get nailed, fight it – because a $50 tick­et can cost you thou­sands once your insur­er gets wind of it. 

A few minor observations:

• The arti­cle con­firms what motorists have long sus­pect­ed: Many states sub­si­dize their bud­gets dur­ing lean times by increas­ing the fre­quen­cy (and aver­age tick­et price) of speed­ing traps.
• The urban myth that police offi­cers often don’t have time to show up to court to pros­e­cute a speed­ing tick­et isn’t a myth; the arti­cle con­firms (with cit­ed sources) that at least 25% don’t appear in court, thus auto­mat­i­cal­ly nul­li­fy­ing your speed­ing ticket.
• Not fight­ing a tick­et can cost you big. While the arti­cle only notes spe­cif­ic fig­ures for a hand­ful of states, the states and insur­ance amounts not­ed are fair­ly typ­i­cal (in my expe­ri­ence with oth­er states) of most U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
• Being bel­liger­ent or irri­tat­ed when pulled over is prob­a­bly the worst mis­take one can make. An atti­tude not only increas­es the like­li­hood and amount of a speed­ing tick­et, but it can also slant a traf­fic court hear­ing against the driver.
• The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of peo­ple who fight a tick­et win, if not by an out­right dis­missal of the tick­et (which is com­mon), then at least by achiev­ing a reduced offense that costs less and won’t effect insur­ance rates.

The arti­cle is cer­tain­ly worth a read. Even if you don’t make a habit of speed­ing (I take the Fifth), the rev­e­la­tions about the process­es, fig­ures, and per­cent­ages at play, espe­cial­ly with insur­ance com­pa­nies, are worth knowing.