In this post, we’ll be answering some commonly asked questions about traffic tickets and their repercussions on your life and employment.

Will a traffic ticket affect my employment?

In most cases, the answer is no. However, it can also be a bit more complicated. If you have a job that requires you to have a driver’s license, then a traffic ticket severe enough to revoke your license will have an obvious and immediate impact on your employment. People who need to worry about this kind of situation include:

• Taxi drivers
• Truck drivers
• Bus drivers

Essentially, anyone who drives for a living. There’s also the indirect effect of a ticket losing you your license and an inability to get to work, in which case you risk job termination.

That said, it should be remembered that most employers can choose to fire their employees for any reason with only a few exceptions (race and gender discrimination, for example). So when it comes right down to it, yes, you could be fired for receiving a traffic ticket, but that is highly unlikely.

Will a traffic ticket affect my insurance?

This is one of the first concerns people have. The answer is that traffic tickets can and most likely will affect your insurance in some way. Depending on certain circumstances, it can affect your insurance immediately, or the effects can be delayed.

Most insurance companies don’t change your insurance rates until the day your contract is renewed. At that point, when they see a traffic ticket, they may decide to increase your insurance rates. A simple ticket probably won’t have much of an effect, however, multiple tickets, especially over a short amount of time, will likely increase your rates substantially.

The reason for this is that insurance companies offer services, but the nature of the relationship depends on how high of a risk you are to insure. If an insurance company sees multiple tickets on your record, they will increase your rates because they will see you as a riskier driver, and thus a riskier client.

When To Hire a Traffic Ticket Attorney

When you’ve been issued a traffic ticket, there are essentially two options available to you: pay the ticket or hire a traffic ticket attorney to fight the ticket for you.

Many people who receive traffic tickets often find the former option to the be the fastest and relatively easiest way of going about things, however, if you truly believe the ticket was unjustly issued and want to fight it in court, it is almost never a good idea to try and do so yourself. As a layman, you probably don’t know all the ins and outs of the courtroom, the processes involved, or how to successfully fight a ticket. In fact, most professional attorneys who end up in trouble with the law hire attorneys to represent them. The reason being that they, the judge, and in some sense the court, sees the importance of having an objective, third party there to represent them.