Did you know that there are over 41,000,000 speeding tickets issued annually in the United States? Do you ever get that feeling like Big Brother’s just standing there, staring over your shoulder, waiting for the day when you wake up so late that you could be Superman and still not make it to work on time so they can slap you with a speeding ticket and boost their state revenues? Okay, so it’s probably not quite that bad, but the bottom line is that speeding tickets are frighteningly easy to come by and can leave a long lasting impression on your auto insurance premiums.
See, your auto insurance company is going to hit you with a pretty crossover after you’ve been convicted (note: not given a ticket, convicted-as in, a judge said there’s absolutely, positively no way that you could possibly have been doing the speed limit that day). The first thing they’re going to do is yank away your Good Driver discount, the five to fifteen percent (or higher) they shaved off your insurance policy because you didn’t have any visible blemishes on your driving record.
Let’s do the math. Say you’re currently paying $300 a month for the auto insurance on your jazzy Corvette. (Please note, this is just an example-actual insurance rates will vary.) Because you’re a long time customer with a clean driving record who was already going to be paying an arm and a leg to insure your snappy new sports car your insurance provider cut you a 25% discount on your insurance. Now that you’ve been slapped with a speeding ticket, they’re tacking that 25% back on. That raises your premium payments a full $100 a month. That’s $1,200 a year!
To add insult to injury, your auto insurance provider is also going to raise the rates on your insurance premiums to compensate for the fact that you are now considered to be a much higher insurance risk than you were previously. The average speeding ticket raises the rates of your auto insurance premiums by $900 over the course of a three year period. That’s an extra $300 a year (minimum) that you are likely to be paying for your insurance. (Again, actual rates may vary.)
Your annual auto insurance premium just jumped from $3,600 a year to $5,100 a year, all because of a speeding ticket.
It puts a little bit of perspective back into that morning rush for work, doesn’t it? The bottom line is that nine times out of ten, stopping to smell the roses in the morning (and observe things like red lights and posted speed limits) will pay off in the long run in the amount of money you’re going to save on your auto insurance, and really, don’t you have something better to do with $1,500 a year? Saving hundreds of dollars on your auto insurance can go a long way toward paving the road to wealth, financial freedom and a week spent sipping Mai Tais under a Caribbean sun.
Anthony M. Peck is the Senior Developer, Software Project Manager, and
Director of Business Development for QuoteScout.com. For more information, please visit
them on the web at QuoteScout.com.