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Smart Shopper Insurance and NJ No-Point Ticket option
663 messages, Last post on Jun 19, 2009 at 11:22 AM
You are in the Smart Shopper Forum. Your Hosts are kirstie_h & tidester
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My wife just got our first ticket in decades for a prohibited right turn ( using a detour that was only allowed during certain hours at the wrong time). NJ has a new rule (started in July) where you can plead to a no-point offense ($185 plus $250 surcharge). I don't care about the points as much as how the insurance company will look at the two different offenses. If there is no difference I might as well just pay the normal $75 fine, but if the other allows me to keep the family record clean I'd rather do that. Anyone familiar with this?
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But there also might be a better board to post your question on. The Smart Shopper Message Board is the place for questions regarding insurance issues, or at least it's the board that specializes more in topics about insurance issues. We'll see what kind of response you get here, but I'd bet you'll get a a faster one there. Try using the Search By Keyword feature in the left sidebar and search for "insurance". you'll get a listing of insurance related topics in Town Hall. PF Flyer Host Pickups & News & Views Message Boards
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Sep 01, 2004 6:49 pm) |
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| I'm leaving it open in here for possible responses, but posting it on Smart Shopper might get you a faster one... | |
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I tried to post on Smart Shopper - Apparently only the hosts can do that, there is a topic to suggest topics but no add topic option I could find. Would you please put my topic and question on the Smart Shopper board? |
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Hi stevestein. Apparently your discussion was moved here to the Smart Shoppers Message Board. This is a great place for it because a number of the discussions here are about insurance. I am not aware of any new New Jersey law about negotiating tickets to a lower violation, but people have been doing so for a long long time. When you get a ticket, it is always a good idea to plead not guilty and apply for a court date rather than just signing it and sending it in. When you do so, the state will almost always allow you to plea down to a lesser offense. In New Jersey, this usually involves a reduction in two points. So for example, they will allow you to plead guilty to a 2 point speeding ticket instead of a 4 point one or plead to a no point violation instead of a 2 point one. While it is very time consuming and never fun to go to court, it's better than having your insurance go up. Besides you will feel better about your little ticket when you see all of the people who are in there for driving with suspended licenses. Car_man Host Smart Shoppers Message Board
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Replying to: Car_man (Sep 05, 2004 7:22 am) I'm not concerned over the number of points. We both had clean driving records, and at worst this is a 3 point ticket, and the points will go away in a year. The only reason to pay almost $400 extra is if it doesn't count as an event (i.e. accident or ticket)for insurance rating purposes. If it was an impact in terms of suspended license we'd definately do it, but with insurance what it is in NJ the thought of losing a perfect record is scary. |
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and have been driving longer than 6 years a $100 moving violation can end up costing $1,500-$2,000, when you add in the ticket, loss of safe-driver's discount and step change ("steps" are roughly analogous to points) for six years, all depending on your insurance premiums. If you don't have a clean record, a $100 ticket costs $100. So safe drivers have the incentive to stay safe. Unsafe drivers have little incentive at all. |
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Stevestein- I've been in that boat before, but years ago before the No-Point Ticket option existed. What I did was plead down a 13-mph over the limit speeding ticket with the DA at the court date. I got a Failure to YIeld ticket, a no-point offense. This was when I was 17 and still one month licensed. I pled down another one six months later, still the same. I am now 22 and my premiums have remained the same as when I was 17 (Ah, youth!  ). I think it's safe to pay extra rather than risk the points, period, especially with NJ. Offenses that are no-pointers NVER register on your insurance record, apparently, so unless immediate cash money is a BIG issue, I'd go with the no-point and keep your clean record. Good luck! |
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but, definitely follow the last poster's advice. Whereas you pointed out that the points will be off your license in a year, they will not be off your insurance record for 3 years! (sometimes even 5 years) not to mention that you never know what may happen in the next few years. If you take the points now and happen to get another ticket with points in the next couple of years, you are completely screwed. This is what happened to me 2.5 years ago in jersey. I've been paying twice my insurance rates since then. What makes it even worse is that, come February when those points are off my insurance record, my insurance STILL will not go back to its previous price. Because of the rules of my insurance company, it will take me several more years with no offenses and no accidents to get back to the top tier of the insured. |
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