It pays to avoid a speeding ticket -- or fight one

The pain can be even worse if you're a teenager or young adult. "Getting even one speeding ticket, much less two, can cause a dramatic spike in your insurance rates -- sometimes doubling and even tripling those rates -- and jeopardize your ability to get preferred insurance rates," says Karl Newman, president of the Washington Insurance Council, a consumer education group funded by member insurance companies in Washington State. "That could require you to purchase high-risk insurance."

Luckily, you've got several initial options once busted:

• Ignoring the ticket isn't one of them. "It used to be if you obtained a ticket in New York, it didn't get back to New Jersey," but that's no longer true, says Raskob. Avoid a ticket and a warrant may be issued for your arrest -- a warrant that appears even on the computer system of your hometown cops.

• Special state programs. Talk to your state's DMV or local traffic court to find out about ways to erase your ticket. In Rhode Island, for example, if you haven't had any vehicle-related violations in three years and then receive a minor one (for example, for exceeding the speed limit by less than 20 miles an hour), you can ask that the ticket be dismissed. It usually is, says a spokeswoman. In some southern states, authorities will agree to defer judgment, if you don't get any more tickets for the next six months.

• Traffic school. Often your best alternative is to take a six- to eight-hour safety course for drivers. Policies vary by state, but often a minor speeding conviction can be wiped from your record and therefore go unseen by your employer or insurance company. You'll still have to pay the fine, plus an additional $50 to $80 in tuition and other costs, and invest a Saturday. Some states such as California let drivers take the course online, if approved by the court. Traffic school has its limits, however. In some states, it's an option only once every 18 or 24 months. In others, those caught exceeding the speed limit by more than 15 to 20 mph may not be eligible, says David Brown, the author of "Beat Your Ticket" and "Fight Your Ticket & Win in California."

Should you go to court?

If the above options aren't available, go to court. Court doesn't have to be a Perry Mason experience. Simply asking for your day in traffic court can save you money. Count the ways:

• Showing up is half the battle. Only about 3% of all tickets are contested, estimates Brown, which means even a few people showing up to challenge a ticket can jam the system. "A lot of times the courts will change the ticket for you, to encourage you not to go to court" -- sometimes reducing a moving violation to a lesser charge that your insurance company won't penalize you for, says Eric Skrum, spokesman for the National Motorists Association.

• Cop no-shows. If you show up on your assigned date, defense attorneys say that in 20% to 25% of cases the ticket-writing officer won't. If the officer is required to show up (jurisdictions have different rules), no appearance usually means the ticket is thrown out. No-shows by police happen even more in summer, when even they take vacations.

• Errors matter (sometimes). While courts will often excuse minor errors on a ticket -- a misspelled name, a quibble over whether your Jag is ochre or orange -- if the officer cites the wrong statute on the ticket, or grossly misidentifies the highway or your make of car, you may to get your ticket dismissed, says Skrum. It's often best to keep mum about the gaffe until you go to court, however, and reveal the mistake after the officer has recounted the wrong information.

• An 'A' for effort. If you do get all the way to a magistrate or traffic commissioner, any reasonable objection you have to the ticket is likely to at least reduce the amount of the fine, and perhaps change it to an infraction that won't hurt your rates. "You've got to fight every ticket, because the only thing anyone will ever know is what you reduced it to. The accusation will be lost in the courthouse," says Raskob.

The above, "soft" approach often works, but some people prefer to aggressively contest the ticket, which they usually do with at least some success. When Michael Pelletier, a 32-year-old computer systems engineer in the Bay Area, got a ticket a few years ago, he rented the 10-pound (!) legal defense kit from the National Motorists Association. (The rental cost of the packet, which is tailored to the requester's state, is $50 per month, with a discount for NMA members.)

"The only thing I did was crank the legal crank," says Pelletier. That meant asking for continuances and requesting records -- proof of when the officer's radar gun was last calibrated and when the officer was trained in its use -- in hopes of finding a flaw in the authorities' case, or simply wearing them down until they offered a deal.

A pre-emptive strike

Battling in court can be time-consuming and complicated. Pelletier estimates he invested nearly 50 hours in the year 2000 to fight his ticket, which he received driving his motorcycle 47 miles an hour in a 25 mph zone. He got it dismissed seven months later based on an esoteric legal definition of a "local street or road."

In Pelletier's eyes, the struggles are worthwhile despite the time commitment. He has also helped his wife and brother keep three citations from their records, and when his insurance company upgraded him to a "superior" driver, he paid $70 less in the following six months than he had been paying. And by keeping his driving record clean he's ensured that his next ticket -- if it sticks -- won't hurt him so much as it might have.

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If you don't have the time to do all of this research, consider hiring an attorney who frequently deals with speeding tickets. Such an attorney will know how to get the best deal for you and can often appear in court for you, so you don't have to take a day off to do so. Fees can vary from $200 to $2,000, says author Brown, in part depending on whether they're already frequently in the courthouse dealing with such matters.

The free piece of advice they give, however, is the same: Confront your speeding ticket, even if it's your first, and do your darnedest to make it disappear. After all, they add, you never know when you'll get your next one, with higher premiums close behind.

Updated July 17, 2009

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