What's the Most You've Paid for a Traffic Ticket?

by Freshwire Posted 2013/02/14 23:24:43

Related Topics: Car, State, Free, Running, Poll, Survey, Life, Sign, Phone, Traffic, Limit, Whatever

565 votes
Read all 222 opinions
Lightning Report View Results and Demographics + View Demographics

Loading Demographics... Click an icon to see demographic results Display unknown and private
	$150-$300	424 votes	75%
	$300-$500	77 votes	14%
	$500-$1,000	31 votes	5%
	$1,000-$2,400	33 votes	6%

Most of us do our best to follow the rules when we're on the road, but life happens. Maybe you were running late to a meeting, risked going a few miles per hour over the speed limit, and got caught; maybe you didn't realize there was a "No Right on Red" sign and went for it, even though you know there was a police car right behind you. Even talking on your phone can get you in trouble in most states.

Whatever your experience with getting (or avoiding) traffic tickets, we want to hear about it. If you have a minute or two, take our 8-question poll, and feel free to explain yourself in the comments section! It's rarely a simple story.

+11

Add a comment above

Dogzebra 2013/02/16 15:27:05

$150-$300

+7
What tears me up are the amount of laws cops break in order to write a citation.
>> See Replies

More polls by Freshwire

Al in St. Lou 2013/03/01 18:22:39

$150-$300

It was a long time ago.

reply
smiffjp 2013/02/26 03:41:46

$300-$500

I was going over 100 saw the car slowed down clocked at 90 going down I-15...ticket was 275 plus another 56 for online traffic school. San Bernadino did not complain when I did not take the course...they are broke anyway they got my money

reply
☆Snapefangirl☆ 2013/02/25 08:02:00

$150-$300

I never paid traffic ticket before. (I don't drive.)

reply
seadog6608PWCM 2013/02/25 05:16:32
MarcusRP 2013/02/24 15:56:51

$150-$300

I've never received a traffic ticket.

reply
Not A Crybaby Richard 2013/02/24 14:45:36

$150-$300

I've never gotten a ticket because I don't have a driver's license.

So $0.00

reply
Aleksandr 2013/02/24 12:45:32

$300-$500

My job comes first and I don't want to be late for work, so I don't care paying for a few parking tickets.

reply
Pedalpusher 2013/02/24 05:36:09

$150-$300

Nothing, you're assuming that everyone gets tickets!

reply
Leslie Goudy 2013/02/24 02:21:57

$500-$1,000

I was the first person in my town to be guilty of the three times with no insurance rule. 500 to reinstate the license.

reply
amanda 2013/02/23 23:35:26

$300-$500

+2
417$ :(

reply
lena 2013/02/23 16:05:08

$150-$300

I have an uncle who used to pay THOUSANDS in parking tickets every year. He said he "just wrote them off as expenditures." He's a former cop, who retired young (and I must say most likely in disgrace because he retired at a rank not much higher than the one he went in as twenty years earlier). He always thought that he was above the law and I'm sure his car was seized for tickets more than a few times...wonder why they didn't garisheed his pay check or pension check...I don't know if he had any traffic tickets but I do know that he HAD to be"The King of Parking Tickets", if not high up in the kings court!

PS. I had to check $150 -$300 but I actually think my highest traffic ticket was about $110- $120 and about eight to ten years ago. I live on a street where parking was really difficult. As soon as I got pinched for having about two feet of my car hanging in a "no parking here to corner" spot I flipped on my landlord to give me a parking space or expect to see me move.

Voila no more traffic ticket. I see cops give them out on the four corners of my street NIGHTLY...

reply
Dave 007 2013/02/23 12:44:19

$150-$300

This one cop was talking to his friends (at the site) and joking with them while writing me a ticket. How unprofessional. Too bad this was before cell phones.

reply
⚜Ellen⚜ ☼True American Patr... 2013/02/22 23:48:03

$150-$300

I've only had one traffic ticket in my lifetime. It was in 1985 for $25 I think. My car broke down in town and I had to park on the wrong side of the street as it came to a stop. I parked in a parking spot, just facing the wrong way though. I've never even had a fender bender ...or ticket, other than that.

reply
WhereIsAmerica? ~PWCM~JLA 2013/02/22 22:49:24 (edited)

$150-$300

+2
For 5 mph. (yes, 5 mph) over the speed limit at a trap set right outside of the airport. It was completely and totally ridiculous, but I knew there was no fighting it since that town is notorious for doing that to people and they are all in on it, you can't get a fair trial. I think it was $125 not $150 but still, that is pretty darn bad for 5 mph. and I am not convinced I was speeding at all but he said I was.

reply
Not A C... to WhereIs... 2013/02/24 14:41:43

Here in Austria they only give warnings for 5 mph over the speed limit.

reply
david abe 2013/02/22 20:34:07

$150-$300

It was ten dollars!

reply
FichenDich 2013/02/22 18:42:59

$500-$1,000

I am taking inflation into account. It was $240 in 1983. That has to be about $600 today. The only comment to make is that a truck blasting by knocked off the cop's hat. Then he was almost run over when he retrieved it. After that, he had me go sit in the front seat while he filled out the citation. He said that because I was in the Army, he wrote me up for doing 68 instead of the 72 I was actually going. The fine doubled at 70.

reply
MsDianna 2013/02/22 16:54:24

$150-$300

+1
I've never had a ticket but you didn't have a slot for that answer!

reply
Jenna ☮♡ッ 2013/02/22 14:23:29

$150-$300

+1
Less than that. My first and only ticket (for running a red light, stupid I know but I thought I could make it) was $90. The cop saw me do it too, so it wasn't like I could try and fight it (like I might have been able to if it had been a camera.)
Apparently it was supposed to cost me a lot more, but I was cooperative so he bumped down the fine.

reply
Pickles 2013/02/22 14:18:20

$150-$300

+2
Actually, it was much less than that but there was not that option. I have been driving for over 30 years and I have been stopped for speeding exactly once. I freely admitted it and apologized and he said because I was being so cooperative, he would lessen the speed that I was driving, so that it would cost me less money and points. He said he did have to write it, however, because I was doing 80 kmh in a 50 kmh zone. I totally agreed. I never understood anyone fighting a speeding ticket if they were speeding. And it is not that I never sped before or after that . . . I was just never caught. But, if I were, I would pay the ticket.

reply
nicesteve 2013/02/22 11:50:59

$150-$300

+1
After the fine, court fees, and traffic school tuition, it came barely south of
the $250 mark.

reply
Carlo 2013/02/22 00:42:26

$500-$1,000

+1
Sucks being the minority

reply
charles nelson 2013/02/22 00:18:55

$150-$300

+1
But I got to meet his sister

reply
trollatc 2013/02/22 00:09:50

$150-$300

+1
$250 a long time ago

reply
««Gingey, the Master Debate... 2013/02/21 23:50:40

$150-$300

+1
$150.

reply
Tina 2013/02/21 02:48:01

$150-$300

+1
230

reply
raine1200 2013/02/20 14:16:57

$150-$300

+1
really only 60$ . I usually just ask them do you really need to give me a ticket and they say no just slow down.

reply
macy 2013/02/20 02:49:31

$150-$300

+1
By that I mean $0, because I've never gotten a ticket.

reply
cass 2013/02/19 20:46:50

$1,000-$2,400

+2
$1500.00 for a speeding ticket and i was lucky at that...

reply
bt sedlock 2013/02/19 19:17:27

$150-$300

+1
Less than $150.00, much less.

reply
Charlie 2013/02/19 18:19:59

$150-$300

+2
I average maybe one speeding ticket every three to five yrs. But I'm a truck driver so if you include DOT tickets for stuff like being over loaded, a marker light out, a grain of sand on the bed of my trailer or in the case where a DOT cop doesn't think I have enough chains holding my load down or he or she just doesn't like the way I applied them. Hell I get those all the time. Seams like there's a DOT cop hiding behind every tree in my neck of the woods. I talked my way out of a speeding ticket once from a Texas State Trooper, That's something you want hear of to often. Back then the speed limit was still 55 and I was doing 70. When he pulled me over I jumped out of the truck with all my paperwork in hand, license, insurance, regurgitation, medical card and toilet paper. I met the trooper at the end of my trailer and handed him all my paperwork except the roll of toilet paper. There was a small patch of trees right next to the road and I turned to head toward em when he said. Hold on there driver. Just where the hell do you think your going ? Man I'm about to poop all over myself right now. If you hadn't of stopped me I would have made it to that truck stop up the road but that ain't gonna happen now. I told him I would shake a limb or something so he would no I wasn't
maki...

I average maybe one speeding ticket every three to five yrs. But I'm a truck driver so if you include DOT tickets for stuff like being over loaded, a marker light out, a grain of sand on the bed of my trailer or in the case where a DOT cop doesn't think I have enough chains holding my load down or he or she just doesn't like the way I applied them. Hell I get those all the time. Seams like there's a DOT cop hiding behind every tree in my neck of the woods. I talked my way out of a speeding ticket once from a Texas State Trooper, That's something you want hear of to often. Back then the speed limit was still 55 and I was doing 70. When he pulled me over I jumped out of the truck with all my paperwork in hand, license, insurance, regurgitation, medical card and toilet paper. I met the trooper at the end of my trailer and handed him all my paperwork except the roll of toilet paper. There was a small patch of trees right next to the road and I turned to head toward em when he said. Hold on there driver. Just where the hell do you think your going ? Man I'm about to poop all over myself right now. If you hadn't of stopped me I would have made it to that truck stop up the road but that ain't gonna happen now. I told him I would shake a limb or something so he would no I wasn't
making a run for it. I stayed in there for what I felt was the appropriate amount of time then I came on back. That trooper was just standing there shaking his head. He just handed me all my paper work and license and told me not to ever let him catch me hauling ass down his highway again. I thanked him and offered to shake his hand but he declined on the hand shake.
(more)

reply
kittycat 2013/02/19 16:33:34

$150-$300

+2
This poll starts too high; I can't imagine getting tickets for over a thousand dollars. The only tickets I've gotten were for parking and they were $20 each.

reply
bt sedlock to kittycat 2013/02/19 19:31:49

+1
On 9/11/01 I parked my car on the grass on Washington Rock. I wasn't supposed to park there, but there was no room in the parking lot becasue all the cars were there. Everybody wanted to see the smoke billowing out of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center; I wanted to see it myself. I got a ticket and had to go pay it at the police department.

reply
WhereIs... to kittycat 2013/02/22 22:53:03

+1
Not anymore, towns are making their revenue that way, at least some of them. Look out for the speed traps.

reply
Tasinahri 2013/02/19 15:37:34

$500-$1,000

+2
The one and only ticket I ever got was originally $10.00 but I couldn't pay it till some 10 years later, and it escalated to a little over $800.00 by then.

reply
KEYPINITREEL 2013/02/19 15:36:03

$300-$500

+1
I feel that many traffic tickets are like harassment, for instance Im driving down Ronald Reagan Lane in Georgetown Texas, the speed limit goes from 65 to 60. Im trying to get where Im going so Im playing it close... I see Johnny law (police), I look down at my dash, Im doing about 69...I know its over 65 but the limit is 65...Im thinking to myself.. I think Im good.

Next thing I know, Here comes Johnny Law with his party lights flashing, Nobody out there but him and me... traffic is literally like one or two cars a minute driving by...maybe less. Middle of Nowhere type traffic. Dude pulls me over, the Speed limit was 60 as of a half mile back... then he gives me a ticket ... I sign it... look down..find out he bumped me up to 71... just to put me 10 Mph over the limit...taking my ticket from 150 bucks to 185 bucks.

Now here is my gripe, This dude (cop) just robbed me for 185 dollars, for supposedly doing a 71 in a 60 in the middle of nowhere ( his word versus mine), with no traffic present! Now... how long does it take the average person to work to pay that off... that's almost a days pay. That's whats unfair and unjust, that's BullSh#@t. If Im wrong Im wrong but those fines are wrong too. The road is flat... no curves, two to three lanes each direction, no rain , sunny day... nobody out there...he's bored...im minding my business... I got jacked for 185 dollars... by the cops. In broad daylight....

reply
Not A C... to KEYPINI... 2013/02/24 14:44:30

Ronald Reagan would be ashamed to hear that his dedicated road gets scummed by those kind of tickets... :/

reply
David 2013/02/19 14:54:56

$150-$300

+1
Actually the last traffic ticket I got which was in 1999 was about $85.00 for 72 in a 60.

reply
Avi Rosen 2013/02/19 11:06:34

$150-$300

+3
There is a political conspiracy to make you feel very guilty for speeding. (e.g. Driving over the allowed speed in that area).
Yet there are clear researches that prove speed per say has the least affect on overall annual traffic casualties.

It is made to let the police say we fought accidents! when actually they just applied the easiest way to catch you, They draw the target around the shot hits. Playing with the figures.
Actually they are merely "searching for the lost money under the street light and not where actually walked and most likely to have lost it there".

Were you ever fined for not keeping adequate distance to the vehicle in front?
This yields to more than 15 times the volume of traffic casualties...
Or were you ever fined for driving too fast to the circumstances?
Which might sometimes even be driving 40 on a 50 zone but when the circumstances ask for 30 because of kids playing people walking, traffic or even rain or road spillage...

reply
dave.ja... to Avi Rosen 2013/02/20 08:05:05 (edited)

+1
Maybe I'm confused but did that comment answer the question? ;)

reply