So, I called my brother while waiting in line to the prosecutor. My brother told me before I made a deal to call my insurance company to see if it would affect my rate if I just plead guilty to the charge. He told me most insurance companies will not charge you extra if its a speeding ticket and it is only two points. So I called mine was talking to the guy that works there and he puts me on hold; as I'm on hold I'm inching closer to talk to the prosecutor (and the court). Well the court must have some type of scrambler or something cause it disconnected me. I asked the nice girl behind me if she would hold my place as I called my husband to have him call the insurance company and find out how much my little speeding infraction would cost us. Well he sent me a text and said it wouldn't cost me anything to plead guilty but if I had plead guilty to the lesser charge (with zero points to my license) the lesser charge is usually 4pts to the insurance company. So whew! I'm so glad I checked!!!
So in summary, my two point ticket had two options:
I could plead guilty and pay $85 with two points on my license and no insurance points.
I could plead non-guilty and pay $540 ($40 court costs, $250 for the fine, $250 surcharge on that fine) have no points on my license then have 4 insurance points!
I learned if ever in this position that it doesn't hurt to ask questions!!
While in the HUGE line there was a young girl in front of me with her mom (about 18 years old, because she still had her provisional license). I listened (evesdropped) to her as she met up with three of her friends (one was setting up a payment plan and one was also there with a provisional license and a drunk driving ticket!). She was there to fight two tickets that she got in the same evening one for going 20 mph over the speed limit and one for running a red light (two separate incidents about 20 minutes from each other). Her mom started telling me that she was probably going to lose her license because of prior offenses and how much the fines were going to be. Then she looks at me expecting me to commiserate saying I can't even imagine how much I'm going to pay on insurance for her now. I wanted to slap her and say you know maybe your daughter might take more responsibility with her driving if you forced her to pay the consequences of her actions rather then paying them yourself! The girl who was there was positively bored with it and joking around like she could care less, wearing a shirt that left the bottom three inches of her midriff exposed and dirty, tight, ripped jeans. I can tell you this, my 18 year old would not be driving my car and on my insurance if they didn't respect the responsibility of driving. If they did happen to get a ticket, I'll give you three guesses to figure out who would pay the thing and any and all charges associated with it.. Just standing there got my gumption all up.
2 comments:
Wow! I had not idea, thanks for the little lesson...hopefully I'll never need to use it:) Oh, and I'm totally with you on the young girl and her mom. I heard a commercial that some insurance company suggests setting up a contract with your kids around driving privileges. I think it's a GREAT idea and will serve to teach them about responsibility, commitments and the like. That coming from a Contracts Manager, I realize:)
Yea it really is a good thing you checked all that stuff out with your ins. company with thse charges. It's weird how that stuff works out that you're better off pleading guilty. I would never have thought to even check it out.
Oh and it really sounds like that girl in line needs someone to set her straight. I can't understand why some parents let their kids grow up without having them take responsibility for their actions. It really is setting them up to fail in life.
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