‘No idea where this comes from,’ 3 traffic ticket myths you still believe
Steven Thomas is a traffic attorney and partner at the Driving Defense Law firm in Norfolk, VA. He and his team share their knowledge of driving law on their TikTok (@drivingdefenselaw). Here are three false traffic myths he warns his followers about.
- You can ignore traffic tickets you get in other states
- Going with the flow of traffic is a valid excuse for a speeding ticket
- You can keep a traffic ticket off your record by overpaying for your ticket
1- “You can ignore traffic tickets you get in other states”
Thomas definitively says, “This myth is false.” He understates, “You may be thinking, ‘oh, if I get a traffic ticket in another state, I can just ignore it. I won’t have to deal with it.'” But the law doesn’t work that way, especially in modern times. “If that state reports the ticket to your home state, it could show up on your record. If you get a ticket in Virginia and it’s reckless driving, you could have a warrant out for your arrest because of that ticket.”
I previously wrote that Jim Tubman of New Jersey lost his driver’s license when he went to renew. Why? An unpaid ticket from a 1991 road trip to Arizona had finally caught up with him.
2- “Going with the flow of traffic is a valid excuse for a speeding ticket”
Though this second myth is false, it keeps popping up. That’s because people seem to hope it will work with a police officer as a get-out-of-jail-free card. “This is probably the most common excuse that people use.”
So why isn’t this a legal defense? “Put simply, just because other people are breaking the law, it doesn’t mean you can do it.”
3- “You can keep a traffic ticket off your record by overpaying for your ticket”
Thomas insists that throwing money at a fine won’t solve this problem. “If you’re found guilty of a charge, you have to pay the fine. No amount of overpaying is going to do anything for you.”
So where does this myth come from? There may be ways to keep a ticket off your permanent record–and both do require some extra fees. But as I previously wrote, Attorney Hector Gonzalez III of Texas outlines two methods to keep a ticket off your record without even hiring a lawyer. They include taking additional driving classes and opting for probation.
MotorBiscuit has reached out to @DrivingDefenseLaw for comment. You can see all five of Thomas’s myths about traffic tickets in the video embedded below:
