Car insurance and speeding tickets.

Texas is a long way across, and the state allows speed limits of up to 85 mph on its most remote stretches of highway. The Texas Highway Patrol last year wrote 3,726 citations for drivers traveling a speed of 100 mph or more.

In July, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety ticketed 21 motorists for driving more than 100 mph. One driver was going 135 mph.

More than 300 drivers in Chicago clocked in at 40 mph or more over the posted limit in 2010.

We are a nation with a heavy right foot. But some of us have feet made of lead.

Not all speeding tickets are created equal. The heavier that lead foot gets, the more severe the consequences. In such cases, your speeding fine will be the least of your worries.

Get tapped for a 100-mph ticket, and in many states you’ll automatically face a reckless driving charge. Several states levy hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in administrative fees and penalties.

And your insurer will react exactly as you’d expect: with a dramatic increase in your car insurance rates .

Speed increases the distance a vehicle travels before its driver can react to an emergency, and it increases the distance needed to stop once a driver can hit the brakes. And it greatly increases the amount of energy released in a collision. When impact speeds rise from 40 mph to 60 mph–an increase of 50 percent–the force generated increases by 125 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Speeding was a factor in 31 percent of motor vehicle crash deaths in 2009, the IIHS says. That’s 10,591 deaths related to speed.

It would be impossible to tell you how much any given ticket might cost you. It varies with the laws of the state, the jurisdiction within the state and even the mood of the specific officer who pulled you over.

In most states, the fee associated with a speeding ticket increases in proportion with the degree to which you are exceeding the speed limit.

At the low end, there is great tolerance. For instance, you may get off with a warning or a small fine if you’re driving 52 in a 45 mph zone. Texas won’t put any points on your license for infractions less than 10 percent over the speed limit, and insurers generally don’t penalize you for a single minor violation.

Of course, it also matters where you speed. Keep yourself in check in school zones and construction zones, or expect hefty fines.

On the upper reaches of your speedometer, your wallet becomes fair game.

Georgia last year passed a law targeting “super speeders.” Who is a super speeder? Anyone caught driving more than 75 mph on a two-lane road or 85 mph on a freeway. Those drivers get to pay an additional $200 on top of the speeding ticket fine (which can reach $1,000 all by itself). Tennessee is reportedly considering a similar law.

At a certain point, you’re not getting a ticket for speeding anymore.

In California, if a driver is caught at a speed above 100 mph, the infraction becomes a misdemeanor and possibly a reckless driving citation, says Pete Moraga, spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California. Being caught at that speed also results in an automatic suspension of the driver’s license for up to 30 days, a stiff fine and 2 points on the driver’s record. Four points in 12 months will also result in suspension.

Speeds that are de facto reckless driving include:

Over 80 mph in Virginia, North Carolina and HawaiiOver 85 mph in Oregon, Connecticut and ArizonaOver 100 mph in Minnesota and California.

Other states look at how much you’re over the posted limit before labeling you reckless, ranging from 15 mph over the limit in Arkansas to 36 mph over in North Dakota.

In all states, your license can be suspended or revoked if you have enough points on your record or the offenses are severe enough. Some states up the ante by charging drivers with bad records an annual “driver responsibility fee.”

At least four states–Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Texas–charge an annual fee to drivers with excessive points. In Michigan, drivers face yearly fees that range from $100 a year for seven moving-violation points to $1,000 a year for a DUI. Other states’ programs are structured similarly.

Then there’s the issue of being tossed in jail: Half of the states allow for jail time for speeding, with the maximum sentence ranging from three days in Nebraska and Washington, D.C., all the way up to a year in many others. In general, jail time is completely up to the judge in any particular case.

The nature of the offense determines the impact on your car insurance coverage, says Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.

“A higher-speed ticket often includes additional charges, such as reckless driving, that also carry higher points,” she says. The citation “will likely affect your insurance premium and could even result in you losing your insurance, particularly with a preferred company that may consider you too high a risk.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the cost of speed-related crashes is more than $40 billion each year.

To get an idea of what a Dukes of Hazzard-quality ticket does to your car insurance  premiums, we ran insurance quotes for a 23-year-old male driving a 2011 Honda CR-Z, comparing rates for drivers with no violations to rates for drivers with a single speeding ticket for 20 mph or more over the limit.

We also ran quotes adding a prior violation, assuming that if you just got busted for 100-mph-plus, it’s probably not your first rodeo.

A single violation 20 mph or more over the limit is enough to move the needle in all five states we sampled, with increases in rates ranging from 14 percent to 44 percent. If we add a previous minor speeding violation to the mix, the jump is even more emphatic. A sample rate in Middleton, Ohio, went from $1,136 a year to $1,592, an increase of 40 percent. In Biloxi, Miss., the sample rate went from $1,918 to $3,014 a year, up 57 percent. This is just an estimation based on our information gathering.

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Female student car insurance is cheaper than male.

You’ve heard all the jokes about females being bad drivers, but the truth is: females have the last laugh when it comes to affordable car insurance rates. In fact, female student car insurance can cost 10-20% less than male student car insurance.

But why are rates cheaper for the ladies? It seems unfair, especially if you have a son. Read on to learn why females get better rates on female student car insurance.

It may be debatable, but in general, females have a lower incidence of:

Speeding violationsDUIsCollisionsSeatbelt violationsOther traffic violations

To an insurance company, the fact that females tend to drive more safely means they’re at a lower risk of getting into a collision. This is enough for insurers to offer lower female student car insurance rates to the fairer sex.

This isn’t to say a female student driver can’t have a higher insurance premium than a male. If she incurs multiple traffic violations, is at fault for accidents and overall is a risky driver, her rate will in fact increase.

Keep in mind these are generalizations and may not apply to your female student car insurance quote. Click on Get a Quote at the top of this page to see if your female student driver is eligible for lower rates with our insurance partners.

If you’re looking for a male student car insurance quote and want to help your son save on car insurance, all is not lost. There are things he can do to practice being a good driver, which will make him eligible for a good driver discount on car insurance if he keeps his record clean of tickets, traffic violations and accidents for three years.

Obey the laws. By following speed limits and traffic signs, your student driver will drive safer.Don’t drink and drive. It’s not smart and it’s not safe.Don’t drive aggressively. Males tend to be more aggressive while driving, so teach your son to take a deep breath and relax when in stressful driving situations.

Your male student driver may also qualify for car insurance discounts, like good student discounts. If he is a member of certain organizations, he may also be able to save 10% or more on car insurance. As a parent, you can include your child on your policy and realize a multi car discount that applies to all drivers on your policy.

No matter if you have a son or a daughter, you will find savings of hundreds of dollars by buying your car insurance policy right here on our site. We have selected the best insurance companies in the country and asked them to offer you special savings on male and female student car insurance.

If you’re ready to get started, get your free quote right now. You’ll be able to see any discounts your student driver qualifies for when your quote is delivered to your inbox.

You can also browse our extensive article library, which is filled with articles that help educate you on the process of buying male or female student car insurance online. Whether you have a question about how much of a deductible you need, what type of insurance you need if your car is in storage for several months or how to file a claim, we have articles that can help you.

We believe a well informed driver is one that can save on car insurance. That’s why we designed our website with you in mind. Go ahead and explore. Enjoy your savings!

Lebron James : What are speed traps? Is teen auto insurance rating based on speeding?

Teen auto insurance and speeding

Response : A speed trap is a section of highway or road along which traffic laws are heavily enforced. Most of the times speed traps are located in areas where motorists tend to speed, for example because the area is a straightaway or has a downhill incline. In some cases, law enforcement may decide to set up a speed trap in an area where there have been numerous traffic accidents. A police officer will park next to the speed trap and radar traffic to apprehend speeders.

Speed traps are typically set up in areas that include downhill inclines, areas where the speed limit changes, or locations such as schools and playgrounds. As locals frequent those areas and become familiar with their locations, in certain instances the offender will be a driver who is not from that area, or out of town.

Now the teen drivers who are new to driving basically like to speed and so would not be paying much attention to the speed limits or the speed traps or the police who is watching the action and hence would be caught.

Basically the teen auto insurance rate is higher and when you have speeding tickets your teen auto insurance rate would shoot up. What is more suprising and disturbing is the fact that now a days the teenage girls are also prone to speeding. This speeding is a thrill for the time being and can prove to be a dreaded mistake which will haunt you in terms of a bad driving record and high teen auto insurance quotes. Do you want to commit this mistake and be earmarked as high risk drivers?

Stop speeding and get your cheap car insurance rate now and always from here.
Thanks.
Kamlesh

Greg Coleman : : How does speeding affect teen auto insurance quote? What is a basic speed law in USA?

Teen auto insurance quote and speeding

Response : Let us first talk about how speeding affects teen auto insurance quote. Basically, teen auto insurance rates are kept higher than the normal auto insurance rates for other drivers by the very fact that teenagers or young drivers are involved in speeding and speeding lis more likely to lead to accidents.

However, once you have got an teen auto insurance quote, by comparing auto insurance quotes online which is very easy or offline- which might not give you all the options, the teen auto insurance quote is not going to be affected just by speeding, unless you are involved in an accident orget a speeding ticket. If either one of them happens than also your teen auto insurance quote will be higher and you would not get cheap teen auto insurance quotes unless you look up the quotes online. If you are involved in an accident and also get a speeding ticket, you would be paying much higher for teen auto insurance.

What is speeding?
Well, this is just reproducing something I have read since I am good at insurance but am not a traffic person.

“In most of the US, speed limit signs are posted which indicate the maximum and minimum rate of speed at which a motorist may travel in that designated “zone”. Individual states, provinces, or communities set the speed limit to suit their specific needs. Typical speed limits include a low limit for downtown driving, a higher one for highway driving, and a maximum speed for freeways and throughways. If no speed limit is posted where speed laws exist, national law should be used as a guideline: for example, if the motorist is driving on a two lane highway, the national speed limit for a highway should be complied with.

Specific wording of a basic speed law varies, but essentially it states that a motorist should not travel at an unsafe rate of speed given prevailing traffic conditions such as visibility, number of cars on the road, weather, or the type of road. In many cases, a basic speed law will also add that no driver should drive at a rate which would be considered reckless. Reckless driving is usually defined as a driving in a way which endangers life or property.

What a basic speed law means is that someone who is, for example, traveling at a posted speed limit during foggy weather could receive a speeding ticket. The citing officer could argue that the posted speed limit was not a safe rate of speed for the driving conditions. On the flip side, someone who was exceeding the posted speed limit on an open highway with no traffic and clear visibility could successfully beat a speeding ticket by arguing that the rate of speed was perfectly safe.

Most drivers are familiar with the concept of a “speed trap”, though they question the fairness of law enforcement agencies issuing a large amount of speeding tickets in areas where most of the traffic is exceeding the speed limit anyways. The issue appears to be whether or not a speed trap and subsequent large volume of tickets generated is for the greater cause of reducing speed and thus accidents, or to generate revenue for the municipality and reach ticket quotas.

I hope this helps in understanding speeding and how it would affect teen auto insurance quotes?

Andy Jenkins : How would speeding influence car insurance rates?

Speeding and Car Insurance Rates
Response : Speeding, especially for young drivers or teens is very common. Most drivers drive faster than posted speed limits, at least now and then, and many speed every time they get behind the wheel. It doesn’t seem to matter that average speed limits across the country are higher now than they were a decade ago.

Most drivers push beyond the posted speed limits, whether they are running late, not paying attention to their speed. Of course when you have a new sports car just for the thrill of riding fast. Clearly, there are not enough highway patrol officers to give speeding tickets to all those who speed. This means the odds of not getting caught and ticketed always favor the speeder.

Until they do get a speeding ticket, most drivers give little thought as to how this may affect their car insurance rate quote. They may be in for an unpleasant surprise! They will have to pay an expensive increase in their auto insurance rates, in addition to the ticketed fine, once they get their speeding ticket. In cases of extreme speeding, a driver’s cost of car insurance could actually double, even on a first offense.
Why do insurers often raise your car insurance rates after only one speeding ticket? It’s simple. Numerous studies by highway safety experts show that “the faster you go, the more deadly it is,” says Jeanne Salvatore, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute (III), an industry trade group. “There’s a higher possibility you’re going to cause a lot of damage to people or property,” Salvatore says.

If you’re cited for speeding, your insurer may attach a temporary surcharge to your policy for three years. One large auto insurer may raise your rate by up to 26 percent the first year, then gradually lower that surcharge and drop it completely after three years, as long as you have no more moving violations.
The size and duration of the increase varies depending on several factors, including:
• Your driving record and your relationship with the insurance company. Some insurers waive the surcharge if the customer has had a long relationship with the company and previously had a clean driving history.
• Where you live. Insurance is regulated by the states, and different states have different laws regarding the cost of car insurance. Some states don’t allow insurers to impose a surcharge for first-time speeding tickets, while others require insurers to raise rates for some speeding violations. For example, a single male driver who lives in Phoenix and receives one speeding ticket will experience an average rate increase of 16 percent, but the same driver will pay no more if he lives in Philadelphia.
• How much you were exceeding the speed limit. An analysis by USA TODAY found that 10 percent of ticketed drivers in 2002 were “extreme speeders”—drivers who exceeded 90 mph, or 15 mph above any speed limit. Extreme speeding is considered reckless driving, a major violation. Even a first-time citation can more than double the cost of car insurance and inflate your car insurance rate quote.
Speeding may also affect insurance rates other than just your auto insurance.General auto insurance companies may look at your driving record when deciding whether you’re a high-risk customer and could charge you higher rates for life, health, disability or long term care insurance.

Once upon a time in the ancient past—at least 30 years ago, anyway—there were a series of public service ads on television and radio with the overall message, “Speed kills.” One displayed a clock and then showed a car speedometer pushing 65. “Don’t try to catch this hand [the clock] with this one [the speedometer],” the announcer advised.

In other words, it might be better to be late than dead or seriously injured. It’s been a long time since there was a public campaign aimed at getting America’s drivers to slow down and save lives. But that doesn’t mean speeding is any safer. Speeders are still more likely to have accidents, injuring themselves and/or others, than drivers who obey speed limits.
An increase in car insurance rates caused by speeding is troublesome, but the increased risk of death or serious injury is even worse.

Parents of teenagers and young drivers should always explain to them the dangers of speeding. Speed less on the road but speed up to get cheap auto insurance quotes.

Happy Motoring.
Thanks.
Kamlesh.