Ok everyone. Please listen to me. I know it seems easy, I know it seems cheap. I know it means you don’t have to pay a lawyer. But please. Please. Really please. Please promise me you will NEVER EVER EVER use payncticket.org to pay a ticket. Here’s the deal.
So you get a ticket somewhere in North Carolina, right? And the ticket says you can just go to payncticket.org online and pay. Don’t have to go to court. No attorney, nuthin. How convenient, right? How wonderful? I mean, hell, you can be sitting in yer PJ’s sipping gin and juice and at the very last minute pay that sucker online with just a credit card, right?
What’s not to like?
Please, damas y caballeros, listen. Please don’t make this foolish mistake.
payNCticket.org is a website operated by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), and it is PURE EVIL.
payNCticket.org allows the recipients of various NC traffic tickets (charging a certain group of “waiveable” offenses, meaning those cases where your attendance isn’t REQUIRED in cout) to go online and pay the ticket with a credit card. And while this may be CONVENIENT enough, you need to know: this is THE SAME as going to court and standing up in front of the judge and saying “guilty” when he asks “how do you plead?”. And you wouldn’t EVER do that, right?
It is VERY Expensive, Considering the Insurance Hit
- “Just plead” guilty to 12 mph over the limit and your insurance will go up about 25%
- “Just plead” guilty to running a stop sign and your insurance will go up about 15%
- “Just plead” guilty to driving without a valid license and your insurance will go up 25%
- “Just plead” guilty to passing a red light and your insurance will go up 25%
- “just plead” guilty to passing a stopped school bus and your insurance will go up 400% (holy moly, Batman)
See? What’d I say? Still have a problem “just saying no” to payncticket.org? Check this:
An Example of How Expensive This Can Be
Assuming your car insurance is like $1,000 a year, right? A 15% increase means $1,150. 25% increase means it’s $1,250. 400% means $4,000. Get it Einstein? Oh yeah, BTW, those insurance rates stay up there for 3 YEARS! DOO DE MATH!
Oh, I see. Dinero’s not a biggie huh? The insurance goes up and you don’t even care, right? So you can use payncticket.org and it won’t ever be a huge deal for you. Think so? Think again. Check this:
It Can Even Lead to License Revocation
Client of mine hired me to “unscrew” his driving record after he “screwed it up”. He had two speeding tickets for 14 mph over the limit within a year. In both he was totally enticed by the “convenience” of payncticket.org and -in fact- paid his tickets (both times) with this “convenient” website. WTFF? Oh ya. Revocation son.
NC Law says two tickets in a year for more than 55mph each and YOU’RE REVOKED!!!!! Baaa-zingggg!!!!!!
And while it may have looked good to this guy -in the beginning- to “simply plead guilty” by using payncticket.org, it was certainly not so in the end. Nope. And here’s why: Although a lawyer may have charged him -say- $100 for each of the tickets (so he would have SAVED $200 with payncticket.org) because he had to pay a lawyer to UNSCREW his license and fix the two tickets that he pled to, he wound up PAYING $1,000. So he saved $200 but had to spend $1,000? Hey everyone in math class, that’s the same as LOSING $800. WTF?
Lessons learned, people. Here it is: Don’t mess with payncticket.org You may THINK you’re saving money, but if you have to pay an attorney to fix what payncticket.org lulls you into doing, you’re NOT getting ahead.
Bottom line: payncticket.org is the antichrist and should be avoided at all costs. But hey, if you know about BernieSez.com, you’d never be in that situation in the first place!
Somebody tweet this! Folks gotta know!
I’ve been advising clients and potential clients of the effects on insurance and the cumulative effect of two or more tickets for 32 years in my law practice. I have had several business people hire me in a state of shock when they had paid off two tickets over 55 within a year because “it was only a few miles over”. They just didn’t know about N.C.’s little surprise of two tickets over 55 within a year revoking a driver’s license. Your advice was spot on.
Just got a ticket for running into someone in stop and go traffic (in the Rain). I was pulling my RV and the pavement was slippery and slid about 8′. Is this something I should hire a lawyer to try and beat, reducing my exposure to the Insurance Co.?
HI there! Not sure where you are but…. As a general rule, barring a serious accident, if you present to the DA/Solicitor in charge of your ticket a letter from your insurance company indicating their payment of the damages claim to the other driver, they will TYPICALLY dismiss the charge. This is true where I am in NC. I would wager it’s very like this elsewhere. NO need for an attorney if that’s what you wish to try. Whether this will work where you are is really a matter of the DA/Solicitor’s policy where you are and that might be something only known to local lawyers. However, having the ticket tossed may not guarantee that your insurance doesn’t STILL take a hit. Here in NC what I have described avoids a “double hit” on your insurance (having the ticket dismissed with a letter showing insurance paid damages you may see your insurance rate go up due to the accident itself but not from the conviction on an underlying charge of following too close or failing to reduce speed). Hope this helps!