North Carolina Traffic Tickets – When is it a good idea to pay off a speeding ticket?

The answer is “almost never,” at least for most North Carolina speeding tickets.

Generally, you don’t want to pay off a speeding ticket because that means you are pleading guilty, and you’ll then get the DMV and insurance points associated with your charge.

The DMV points aren’t a huge deal if you have a good record.  They don’t hurt you until you get 12 in a three year period, then they will revoke your license. But if you have 11, nothing happens.

Insurance points are cumulative, though.  One point increases your auto insurance rates 30% for THREE YEARS.  Two points, 45%; Three points, 60%.  And it gets worse.  So just paying off a ticket/pleading guilty, isn’t normally a good idea.

The only time I would consider it would be under very certain circumstances:

___ you are charged with speeding 10 mph over the limit or less

___ you don’t have any moving violation convictions in the past three years

___ and you know for sure that appearing or having an attorney appear for you in court will not possibly get the matter reduced to a non-moving violation

___ and you know that if you are convicted of a moving violation in the next three years you’ll get those points as well as the insurance points on the one you paid off

Under those circumstances, it might make sense to pay off a speeding ticket.  But unless you can check all of those off, you probably don’t want to just pay it off.

For the best advice call me or another local traffic ticket attorney and we can normally give you a good idea as to what might be your best course of action.