5 Common Traffic Violations That Can Affect Your Insurance Rates and How to Fight Them
Getting a traffic ticket is a stressful experience. Even a minor traffic offense can lead to serious consequences, including increases in your insurance rates or even a suspension of your license.
If you’re dealing with a traffic ticket in North Carolina, don’t worry. You have options so you don’t have to go at it alone. Scheuring Law, PLLC helps drivers avoid unnecessary increases in their insurance rates, protects your driving records, and gives you back your peace of mind.
Listed below are some of the most common traffic violations in North Carolina and how we can fight to get you the best result for your case.
1. SPEEDING
Speeding is the most common traffic citation that is issued in North Carolina. In 2021, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol wrote over 300,000 tickets that resulted in an estimated 6 billion dollars of revenue for the state.
It’s no secret that the insurance companies in North Carolina spend millions of dollars every year, lobbying for legislation that allows them to make your rates go up. You have to protect yourself from the traps that have been set to make your rates go up!
North Carolina also is one of the only states that makes simple traffic tickets misdemeanor offenses. For example, speeding over 80mph or in excess of 15mph over the speed limit where the limit is 55mph or greater is a class 3 misdemeanor in North Carolina.
Here’s what we can do to get you the best result for your speeding ticket:
How to Fight It:
In some cases, we might be able to get your ticket dismissed with a driving school.
If unable to be dismissed, we can often get your ticket reduced to a non-moving violation that carries 0 points for your license and insurance in North Carolina. Driving school might be required, depending on how fast your ticket is.
Even if we have to plead to a moving violation, like a standard 9 over reduction (speeding 79/70), you might be eligible for what’s called an insurance waiver through the North Carolina Safe Driver Incentive Plan (NCSDIP). It is always best to have a professional attorney review your driving record and confirm whether you are eligible to have your insurance points waived for an offense.
In serious cases where you have been charged with speeding over 100mph, we can often seek a plea to a traffic infraction to avoid a criminal record and suspension of your North Carolina driver’s license. This often involves completing the right driving school and sufficient hours of community service.
Speeding in a work zone or a school zone can lead to license points, mandatory fines set by the statute ($250), and increases in your insurance premiums over several years. In some cases, we can get these tickets removed from a school zone or work zone to avoid some of these consequences;
2. RECKLESS DRIVING
North Carolina General Statute § 20-140 broadly defines reckless driving as “driving carelessly and heedlessly in willful or wanton disregard of the rights or safety of others.” This includes driving at a speed or in a manner that endangers people or property.
What does this really mean?
Reckless driving is one of the most serious offenses you can be charged with, because it is a class 2 misdemeanor that creates a permanent criminal record for you and will show up on a background check.
Having a conviction for reckless driving is a major red flag to employers, as many companies have internal policies that you cannot be insured to drive a company vehicle with a reckless driving on your record. Many employers have a mandatory reporting requirement that when you receive a charge for reckless driving, you have to bring it to their attention or you could be fired for cause. Similarly, if you are a member of the military, have a federal security clearance, or a professional license or certification, you could have a mandatory duty to report your traffic ticket to the appropriate person and get into trouble for not doing so.
How to Fight It:
For reckless driving tickets, our primary goal is always to avoid a criminal record. Depending on the facts of your case, there are several options we can pursue to get your misdemeanor charge for reckless driving reduced to a traffic infraction. This often involves completing driving school, community service, or both. This also helps mitigate the impact on your insurance premiums, as traffic infractions not only avoid a criminal record, but they also carry less insurance points than misdemeanor offenses.
It is very common for reckless driving to be charged in connection with a higher speed. If handled properly, we can often get your reckless driving charge dismissed in exchange for pleading to the speeding part of your citation, after it is reduced.
In very limited circumstances, we might be able to get a reckless driving ticket outright dismissed. This is usually in regards to single-vehicle accident cases only and often involves obtaining a letter from your insurance company, confirming that the damages from your accident have been satisfied (see below for more information).
3. ACCIDENT CASES: Failure to Maintain Lane Control, Unsafe Movement, or Failure to Yield.
Officers usually issue these citations after you’ve been involved in an accident. These are traffic infractions, not misdemeanors, but could carry very serious consequences for your insurance rates and possibly even lead to an admission of liability that could be used against you in a subsequent civil suit to collect damages for personal injury or property damage arising from your accident. North Carolina insurance regulations provide that this offense carries a minimum increase in your insurance of 30% over a three-year period if you simply pay this off online. Don’t pay this ticket off, hire us to get it dismissed!
How to Fight It:
We can often get these tickets dismissed with a letter from your insurance company, confirming that the damages from your accident have been paid in full. This process takes a very long time and having an attorney go to court for you could save you from having to take off multiple days from work. This is especially true if personal injury is involved in your case. Serious accidents take much longer to resolve than minor accidents.
In certain cases, your insurance company might outright deny liability on the basis that the other motorist was contributorily negligent, meaning that they were the cause of their injury or property damage. In North Carolina, if you are found to have caused your accident in anyway whatsoever, even being 1% at fault, that is a full bar to recovery, meaning you get nothing. If we get a letter from your insurance that denies liability on this basis, this might be sufficient for us to get your ticket dismissed.
4. FAIL TO STOP AT STOP SIGN / RED-LIGHT
Similarly, these are traffic infractions, not misdemeanors, so it may seem tempting to simply pay off your stop sign or red-light violation, but doing so can result in at least a 30% increase in insurance over a three-year period.
How to Fight It:
So long as an accident wasn’t involved, these tickets can commonly be dismissed if you have a good driving record and complete the right driving school.
If unable to achieve an outright dismissal for your stop sign or red-light violation, we can often get these tickets reduced to a non-moving violation, which carries 0 points for your North Carolina driver’s license and insurance rates.
5. COMPLIANCE CASES: Driving While License Revoked, No Operators License, Expired Registration/Inspection, Window Tint Violation.
These traffic offenses are commonly referred to as “compliance citations.” With these types of citations, the District Attorney usually wants you to fix whatever underlying issue is involved that lead to the ticket. Whether it’s a suspended license, expired registration, or window tint violation, we often can get your citation dismissed with documentation confirming that the issue has been fixed.
However, separate from these is driving on a suspended license for an alcohol offense, which is one of the more serious charges in North Carolina. In some cases, this charge can carry the possibility of active jail time. If not handled properly, driving while license revoked (impaired revocation) could also result in a further suspension of your license and up to a 195% increase in insurance over a 3-year period.
How to Fight It:
Getting your license back often involves clearing up old traffic tickets you missed court for, paying court costs or fines that you owe, completing an alcohol assessment, or some other similar requirement that was left unresolved.
If you hire us to help you restore your license, we will complete a professional review of your driving record to make sure you know all the requirements that are needed to get your license back. We often can bundle together different cases (assuming they are in counties that we practice in) to include those as part of a global plea offer to help save you on court costs and fines, as well as filing a motion for a strike order that removes the failure to appear from your record and saves you the mandatory $200 fine that comes with missing court.
In cases where you have been charged with driving while license revoked (impaired revocation), the District Attorney often wants to make sure that you have taken whatever steps are needed to get your license reinstated (assuming you can). This often involves filing a limited driving privilege or completing your alcohol assessment and treatment (ADETS). In certain limited situations, it might be better to seek a Prayer for Judgment Continued (PJC), assuming you have one to use. Always consult with an attorney before taking any action with your case.
What You Can Do to Protect Your Insurance Rates
At the end of the day, the best thing you can do to protect yourself from an increase in your insurance is to hire the attorney who you think will best represent your interest in court.
Here’s how we help protect you:
We appear in court so you don’t have to;
We fight to get you the best result possible, whether that’s a dismissal, non-moving violation, or an insurance waiver, when possible;
We give you direct access to communicate with your attorney;
We serve clients in Oxford, Henderson, Louisburg, Warrenton, Roxboro, and surrounding areas.
Scheuring Law, PLLC has helped drivers throughout Granville, Franklin, Vance, Warren, and Person Counties fight their tickets to get them the best result possible. Whether it’s a speeding ticket, a DWI, or something more serious, we are locally based and know how to get results.
Give us a call at (919) 880-2284 or reach out online for a free consultation.