5 Common Traffic Tickets and How They Affect Your Insurance Rates

It is not hard to get a ticket. If you are running late, you cruise right on over the speed limit to try to make up some minutes, and you get a ticket. Roll through a stop sign when the police are watching. A ticket is on the way. Plenty of other scenarios play out to net you one of those annoying pieces of paper that come with a built-in fine. When it comes to your driving record, some tickets are harmless. Many will spike your insurance rates.

Reckless driving tickets frequently are given after an accident or some observed carelessness.

Sometimes a reckless driving ticket is attached to a speeding ticket or accident. These tickets are designed to say that you would not have had an accident if you were practicing better driving habits. In essence, they mean that you were driving in a way that a prudent driver would not have done. Insurance companies do not like this type of violation or the points that it adds to your driving record. If you get a reckless driving ticket, plan on a spike in your insurance rates until the points from the ticket are cleared from your record.

Speeding tickets are not all created equal.

While insurance companies take note of all speeding tickets, those that are awarded for small infractions at lower speeds usually do not ding your driving record too badly. If you are slapped for topping a 100 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour speed zone, you will feel the pain of high insurance premiums for several years. Speed in a work zone and you may get to wave goodbye to your driver's license for awhile. For these last two, you may see that the reckless and imprudent driving ticket added on to really bruise your insurance cost.

Driving while intoxicated or under the influence of alcohol or drugs will get you some ugly fines and worse.

As much as insurance companies hate other tickets, it is these two that will really pile on the points against your driving record. Just one driving while intoxicated (DWI) ticket can get your licensed revoked. You will be shifted out of the normal insurance pool and will be able to buy only high-risk insurance at exorbitant prices. You can even have your driving limited to work and back and for real emergencies. Hopefully, you can stay out of jail. You may very well be paying higher insurance premiums for 3 to 5 years, as long as you have no other violations.

Failing to yield or failing to stop may not hurt your record too much.

Depending on the specific situation, either of these tickets are generally just going to get you a fine. If the action results in property or human harm, the stakes can rise quickly. If the ticket does not add a few points to your record or come when you are on driving probation for some prior reason, your insurance rates should not go up.

Parking tickets are not usually considered because they are not a moving violation.

Although parking tickets are probably the most common type of infraction, they carry very little worry beyond paying the fine. Your car is parked. This means that it is extremely unlikely that any physical harm will come from your action that caused you to get the ticket. Insurance companies universally ignore this type of ticket. You can get into some legal trouble if your pile of parking tickets grows too high, but your insurance bill should not suffer from them.