Modern Vespa

Can you take traffic school for a speeding ticket, regardless of how much over the speed limit you were going?

Recommended on-line traffic schools?

Sorry for the ignorace - what the heck is traffic school??? I have never heard of that. Don't think we have those on the east coast.

Yup, we do

But it varies from state to state what you can get for you attendance
(at a lecture on how to operate your vehicle more safely)

Some states take points off (you get points added to your license for speeding),
but in some you only get a break on how much your insurance goes up because of the ticket

you can go to traffic school sometimes if you get a traffic ticket. you spend $130 (? anyone know?) and they'll take a point off your driving record. saves on insurance.

My husband got his points reduced by going to the Advanced MSF class

It would be cool if you could also do that instead, out in CA

I'd kinda like to know about this topic too.....

Maybe I should start a thread about radar detectors.....

R

8)

heh what if it happened out of state?

*cough* Rich knows *cough*

At least in Nevada they will cut you some slack.....

Thats old news anyway.....$87 old news.

Just another cannonball outlay....

One of many.

R

8)

Wasn't it in Arizona? I don't even frickin' remember at this point. Might have been Nevada.

Sure, it's old news. Paid and done, but I have no idea about what it means for my driving record (only points I"ve ever had), how they report it and when, and if there's any steps I can take. I am curious of course. *shrug*

Have you been a bad boy, Rich?

Am I the only one who's focused on this part?

So...? How fast were you going? Break any records? Personal best?

Caliente Nevada, at the end of the extraterrestrial highway....you remember...hehehehe It was 'peer pressure'.....really...thats my story and I'm stickin' to it.



R

I just went to online traffic school. I got a speeding ticket in Mendocino county -- 85 in a 55 zone -- driving the Passat with dogs and gear.

Whether you can take online traffic school and which ones you can take, seems to depend on the county. I had to go to the Mendocino court website where I got a list of online traffic schools that they would accept.

I picked one out of the blue. There were lots of possible schools on the list, and I didn't have time to go to each website and try to guess which one was the best. I don't remember which school I picked, but I probably tried to avoid ones with titles like, "Loose 80 lbs in 30 days."

I had to pay the county court a fee to take the online school and I had to pay the school a fee as well.

It wasn't fun, but wasn't a bad experience either, and I didn't get the "points."

Sounds about right....well for Val at least....

R

8)

Wuz inna hurry

umhh....not as fast as we had been going.

however, the stupid cop was sooooooooooooooo happy to have nailed his first two vespas - he was incredulous - "i didn't know vespas could go that fast!!!"

me - "i didn't either!!!! wow........*big smile*

newbie pig boy - "when i pull anyone going over 80, it's always a sport bike!"

me - "congratulations!"

him - two fat tickets and calling his buddies on the radio

ppphhhh......you woulda left me for dead on the freeway going up if i didn't keep up .....standard setter....

not like you haven't done that......lol

R

8)

That's right. It depends on the county, and how many other tickets or moving violations you've received within the past 6 months and 2 years. Talk with the county to verify eligibility.

www.trafficschool.com

Work at your own pace, you can do the 8 hour course in 3 hours. Done this one myself.

so... should I even worry given it was out of state adn this is my first moving violation ever?

I've attended traffic school twice. The first time was in 1993 or so, stuck all day in a hot stuffy room with a third-rate comedian. The second time was a couple of years ago, all online at home, and I finished the entire eight-hour course in two hours.

As other people have said, your options (or not) for traffic school depend on the offense and the county. Read the fine print on your ticket and check with the traffic court.

In California, you can only attend traffic school once every 18 months.

VAL your supposed to out run the cops Sucks that you got nailed. Hope you can get the points off. Good luck. I had a friend who used to out run the cops here. They never bothered him. However were in the country and they loved his motorcycle. Now days there is a central database that everything goes into and all states use it. I got a parking ticket 10 years ago and recently couldn't get my license renewed until i paid it. Hawaii license and a NY ticket Hawaii used to be real strict about your dmv recrod but alas those days are gone now that we have the internet. Now your not safe even if you get a ticket in a one horse town if they have internet Me thinks the good old days are over.I don't know if insurance companies use it but i can't imagine they wouldn't.

I won't be much help for Cali, but traffic school was a good thing here in Florida. Paid the ticket, paid the on-line school, answered the questions and was done. It did require a certain amount of time connected, so even if you could answer everything quickly, your connection was timed. So I puttered around the house returning to the computer every so often to advance to the next lesson until my required time was up.

Now there is no record of the ticket, and no affect on insurance. Like it never happened. However, you can only use traffic school as a "get of jail free" card once in one or three years, something like that. I forget exactly.

Although we have good intentions when dispensing advice, are you going to take legal advice from people on MV who don't have all the facts/details?

Val:

Here's the best one that I've found -- taken it twice because my Vespa is just THAT fast.

http://trafficschoolonline.com/


Good luck. It takes about an hour or less.

In California anything above 20 mph over the posted limit is considered wreckless driving and you will not be eligable for traffic school.

Not necessarily. It depends on which vehicle code section they cite you with (the one they actually write on the ticket.) Most of the time it's just 22349a which is simply "no person may drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than 65 miles per hour." The amount over 65 doesn't matter except to determine the fine.

20 over and they can charge you with reckless, but they rarely do except if you make them chase you or something, in which case the speeding charge is the least of your worries.

Depending on the county, a basic speeding ticket should be eligible for traffic school pretty much across the board, but online may or may not be allowed. I know when I got mine a few years ago, Santa Clara county was the only Bay Area county that didn't allow it. Another time, in Alameda county, I requested traffic school and paid the fee for it, but didn't go to the class, and no points ever showed up on my DMV record. Score!

For the uninitiated: Traffic school is a process by which someone can go to the traffic court and request to have their charges dismissed if they go to a traffic safety class. You pay a fee usually equal to the fine plus an administrative fee, then when the court gets your certificate of completion from the school they drop the charges. That way, the ticket never gets reported to DMV, which means you keep your (hopefully) clean record. By state law, you're only allowed to do this once per year. (or is it 18 months? I forget.)