Cost of a point on a CA drivers license?

July 20, 2015 7:18 PM

I recently got cited for a one point moving violation in San Francisco and I'm trying to decide if its worth taking the driving school option to keep the point off my drivers license. I haven't gotten a ticket in ten years, so my main concern is about how much this will cause my insurance to go up. Do you know how much a single point ticket on my otherwise clean driving record will cause my insurance to go up? I'm married and insured by AAA.
posted by pombe to Travel & Transportation (11 answers total)

Best answer: The online class will take you approximately an hour.
posted by k8t at 7:20 PM on July 20, 2015

Best answer: It's like $20 bucks and takes no time. There is no downside. I'm with AAA, the one time this happened, I never considered not taking the class.

Take the class!
posted by jbenben at 7:31 PM on July 20, 2015

Response by poster: Good to know; I hadn't realized the class was so quick. Thanks!
posted by pombe at 7:37 PM on July 20, 2015

An hour certainly conflicts with my experience, but it may depend on the jurisdiction. I was in LA county; the online course I did had a minimum time to complete for each section, so even if you got through one part quickly, you couldn't start the next one until the minimum time had elapsed. Whole thing took hours, but I watched movies in the breaks between sections. This was also in 2012, so standards may have changed since then.
posted by LionIndex at 7:40 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

My husband was in a minor fender bender. (The first accident in more than thirty years) The hit on our insurance was noticeable but not too bad. However, they warned us that if he got a second ding on his record, he would no longer be the "good driver" category and the insurance rates would soar. I would avoid taking the chance since it isn't that hard to take the course and you just never know what it going to happen tomorrow.
posted by metahawk at 7:42 PM on July 20, 2015

I'm in NE. Here, you can only take the class every so often (3 years?) so it can be wise to save it for an important violation, depending on your driving habits and estimate of your future luck. Try to find out if you have a constraint like that.

I called my insurance agent and said I was considering whether to take the class for a very minor ticket (like yours) and asked whether the ticket would affect my rates. I got a straight answer that appears to have been true. I paid the ticket and did not take the class.

(I'm jealous yours is only $20 and 1 hour. Wow, ours is much worse.)
posted by fritley at 8:22 PM on July 20, 2015

I'm in LA and the online class I did was way more than 1 hour (I think more like 6-8?) and way more than $20, but it was still worth it to get my record back to clean. Plus, it's REALLY dumbed down so I basically did it in sections while watching TV and it was pretty painless.
posted by Bella Sebastian at 8:56 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Try to find out if you have a constraint like that.

In California, it's 18 months.

I'm in LA and the online class I did was way more than 1 hour (I think more like 6-8?)

That was my experience, and the length seemed to be dictated somewhat by law, because the in-person traffic schools used to be 8 hours as well. If your teacher got through all the material ahead of time, you still had to be there until the 8 hours was up.
posted by LionIndex at 9:09 PM on July 20, 2015

I took an online class in LA County. I went with the cheapest one and it was less than $20 but the course length was 8 hours. Like others stated you can't move forward to the next page of reading until the timer has elapsed.
posted by amapolaroja at 11:17 PM on July 20, 2015

I did an online class a decade ago. It was such that you could hold down the space bar and cruise right to the quiz questions. They're easy, so you ace those. Then a final test. Also easy. It was supposed to take hours and I did it in 30 mins.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:08 AM on July 21, 2015

Response by poster: Apparently, LA county requires an 8 hour class, but no other county in California does.
posted by pombe at 8:50 PM on July 21, 2015