Got a ticket for disregarding a stop sign last night in College Station...

Does anyone know if you can take a driver's safety course? And if I can, how does that effect my record. If I don't and just pay the ticket, what happens? Isn't Texas on a point system or something now? Thanks for the help.

 

I dunno any answers to your questions but I sure do hate the cops here....

 

Me too, but at least he was nice to me (besides not giving me a warning). This is the first ticket I've ever gotten, so I don't really know how it effects things.

 

Looks like I'll get two points on my record if I just pay the ticket...I think. So, now I guess I just have to figure out if it will affect my insurance. If it doesn't I guess I'll just pay the ticket w/o trying to take a safety course. Any opinions?

 

I would take the driver safety course. It will go on your record technically, but the insurance companies won't see it and you will only have to pay the court cost which is like $60 normally. I haven't gotten a ticket in a few years so I don't know about the points thing really. Even if you do get another ticket for speeding or something inside 12 months you can still take deferred adjudication (sp), where you pay the ticket and then are on probation for 3 months I think, but it still doesn't go on your insurance record. Outside of 12 months you can just take defensive driving again. HTH

 

why would you want to do that???

take the class and you get the ticket dismissed. no points or insurance rates going up

 

You guys dont have deferred adjudication? This allows you to pay a small fee on top of the ticket price and if you dont receive a ticket for the following 90 days it doesnt go on your record.

 

it depends on the judge. Its not always 90 days and the judge can also make you take defensive driving among other previsions too.

 

Crappy....

 

Oh, well, I thought you had to pay the cost of the ticket plus the defensive driving cost. So, if I take the defensive driving, I only have to pay court fees and for the class?

Thanks again

 

Thats what Ive done for speeding in Fort Worth and Lubbock

 

Chad that sucks man.

Here's what I would do:

Being that College Station can be ridiculously expensive compared to other Texas cities, I would go and actually check out the prices of things before I decided. The deferred adjudication here can be REALLY expensive compared to defensive driving and you have to remember to take into account the cost of the class and the driving record request ($10 I think).

I got a 15 over in Garland (Dallas) a while back and straight up paid for it for $137 (I don't know what I was thinking, I was 16 ) In College Station I got a 9 over and it was $110 just for "court fees" and then $40 more for def. driving and $10 for the driving record. Paying it in CS was $200 something.

Of course it could be worse. I got a 26 over in Farmers Branch. Judge was a d**k (my mom actually got up and yelled at him from the back of the room!) and I got 6 months probation, def. driving, AND paid $450.

Good luck man.

 

450wtf? i've had about 8 tickets and i've gotten pulled over for 23 over and 27 over before and i was able to get them dismissed using deffred adj, or by taking def driving. i would do whatever it took tokeep it from getting on your record.

 

If I just pay the ticket, they want $260. But I mainly just don't want my insurance to go up.

 

I think I read online defensive driving is about $120.