I got a speeding ticket back in January (going 82mph in a 70mph zone, halfway between Austin and Houston) and opted to take defensive driving to make it go away. The rule in Texas is that you can take defensive driving at most once per year, and that the course must cover a certain curriculum, and you must sit there for 6 hours.

In the past, I've tried several different "comedy" defensive driving schools, and I don't recall laughing much, if at all. This time around, I tried DefensiveDriving.com, which has had billboards in the area advertising themselves. It cost $40. They run a web browser with video plug-ins and extensive JavaScript. I didn't bother trying with Mozilla. I just used IE. The general idea is that they won't let you click to the "next" page until a timer counts down to zero. In between pages, they'll often "surprise" you with questions along the lines of: Was the last video about: (a) floods, (b) icy roads, or (c) drunk driving?. They'd also occasionally give you "timed" questions meant to validate your identity, such as What is the first letter of your mother's maiden name?. I guess they're trying to keep you from letting your kids do it for you. On top of all that, even if you finish a section, it's possible, even with those count-down timers, for you to finish a section before the alloted 40 minutes or whatever they've pre-allocated, so they force you to "browse" around until the 40 minutes is up. Oh, and if you're inactive for seven minutes, they time you out.

In short, they do their best to prevent you from just ignoring the thing. In practice, I found I could still web surf or read e-mail, but more involved tasks (like cranking pictures through Photoshop) just don't lend themselves to a 30-second attention span.

They allow you to "log out" whenever you want and resume later. I did the course over two days. Not bad. At the end, they asked maybe 20 questions. I aced the test and the certificate is now on its way via U.S. Mail.

Will I use these guys again? Probably. But I'd still prefer a better solution.

But I'd still prefer a better solution.

Not speeding? *ducks*

I wish I could have taken that class, or anything beyond paying a road tax twice to Texas. But they only allow people with a Texas license to use that path. At least the tickets never hit my Colorado license, or my insurance though. I doubt I will drive again this year to Quakecon, cost me much more then a flight would have.

Even in California, this varies from county to county. Some counties allow you to go to Traffic School to erase a ticket from your driving record, others do not. Some allow you to do it via internet, others require that you attend an all-day class in person.

But they only allow people with a Texas license to use that path.

I lived in Texas for 4 years and they let me take the class with a New Mexico license. Unless they changed their policy recently, you should be able to take a course. But then again, it usually ends up costing more than if you would just pay the ticket, and if it isn't goin on your record anyway, then why bother, I suppose.

- trs

Do US licences have points like the UK? I always thought you just paid a fine based on the infringement and that was it.

Over here it's 3 points per fine, minimum, and usually 6 for > 100mph on a motorway or a large infringement.

If you are a new driver you are limited to 6 points for two years - if you reach that your licence is revoked and you need to take your test again, but this can be done immediately. Otherwise the limit is 12 points.

With 4,000 fixed speed cameras and many Talivans (mobile scamera vans) is isn't too difficult to lose your licence if you are a speedophile or a terminally dreamy driver!



Gareth

The laws vary from state to state. I know that you can eventually loose your license, but I don't know what it takes to do it here. The bigger issue is usually the impact a ticket might have on your insurance. If you can keep a clean driving record, you'll pay a lot less in car insurance.

It depends on the insurer here - I've never had a speeding ticket (/me touches wood, or wood veneer) but one often makes no difference to insurance, two is bad, three will get you problems insuring with mainstream insurers and after a ban it gets quite expensive, depending on your age and the infringements that got you the ban.

Either way I bet it's not nearly as much fun as getting insured after a ban for driving without insurance! (or worse still, a licence)

One further point - prison is not unheard of for speeding offences - two bikers were jailed for 28 days for doing 150ish, a bloke in Scotland was recorded at 156mph in an M3 and jailed for five months, and a police officer was jailed for three months for doing 130mph+ on a bike. Note that all these people were probably released after serving half their sentence.

Gareth

Here's a concise list for North Carolina. I imagine it's similar across the US, but I have no proof of that. Note that insurance points are different from license points.

Here in Louisiana there is a very neat little loophole in ticketing.
First If you get a ticket and do not what the headache of being reported to your insurance company, when you get the money order (or cashiers check ) to pay the fine......get it for 2 or three dollars more than the fine for the violation.
Next the ticketing authority will send you a check for the amount you over-paid. Simply never cash that check. As far as the court is concerned the matter is not settled until the check clears, and they will not report any information to insurance companies on cases that are not closed.

I unfortunately have had to do this a three times in the last few years. I have to drive over 500 miles every week. I live in Baton Rouge, but I have a daughter in Shreveport (250 miles north). So every Friday I load up and head to Shreveport, and every Sunday after church I head back to Baton Rouge. Over the years I have gotten to know most of the state troopers working on Fridays and Sundays. They really don’t bother ticketing me anymore. If one of them pulls me over it’s usually because they are covering someone else’s shift. Sometimes they give me a ticket, but I just call who ever normally works that area and ask them to catch it before it hits the system. This works much better than over paying on a fine that I didn’t want to pay in the first place.

Over the years I have gotten to know most of the state troopers working on Fridays and Sundays. They really don’t bother ticketing me anymore.

Wow! I'm jealous. How have you managed to get these guys to be so nice to you?

I'm just nice to them.

Initially it didn’t start out like that. At first it was just one guy (Josh). For the first couple of months we played cat and mouse. I would be speeding, but either he would fail to lock me in and try to bluff me or he couldn’t get a good reading because of my car and my position in traffic. Like all things the more you practice something the better you get at it. Eventually I got nailed, but we had a Smokey and the Bandit part III sort of think happening. Anyway, one day Josh and I got to talking over the summons and I asked him if he planned on staying with the state troopers, he told me that he was trying to get into the U.S. Marshall’s office, but was not having any luck finding resources. I told him that if he gave me his email address that I would see what I could find on the internet for him. A lot of people here in southern Louisiana are still getting used to the idea of email. He told me that he didn’t have one, and after finding out that he indeed has access to an internet connection, I told him I’d set one up for him and next week, I’d tell him how to access it.

Any way long story short I started stopping off every once in a while to the local troop headquarters to pay tickets from other troopers and they started to recognize me from Josh and told me that if someone “would help’a bastard like Josh,” then I must be ok.
They told me that if I passed one of their driving courses that they would take it easy on me.

The driving course was more fun than anything. It had stuff like 180 spins and J turns (the kind of stuff the do to cars in movies). In return I build them cheap computers and offer some financial advice. It works out nice.

So, basically, bribery. Nice.

I lived in Texas for 4 years and they let me take the class with a New Mexico license

Living in TX as a student or as a non-permanent resident? Otherwise you have six months to get a TX license. or they ticket you for that, too...
The main advantage to defensive driving is that the points don't go on your license and your insurance company doesn't hear about the ticket. Other than that, it can cost almost 2x the price of the ticket because they charge you for the course and "court costs" plus the fine itself. At least they did that last time I went, which was ages ago... *knock on wood*