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If you’ve ever been found guilty of a traffic ticket, you’ve gotten a traffic conviction. 

Traffic convictions are what happens after the judge decides to uphold the ticket. These convictions almost always go on your record and tend to stay there for two to four years. During that time, they can have nasty consequences.

Getting a traffic conviction is like getting called into work on your day off: It’s just about the most frustrating feeling there is. 

If you’ve already been convicted, then here’s some information that might make things a little easier for you.

What Is the Difference Between a Summons and a Conviction?

To make things simple, summonses are what you get when a police officer wants you to go to court. Convictions are what happens when you lose in court or plead guilty or no contest.

Many traffic tickets in the United States are simple citations. However, more serious violations can get you in more serious trouble. In those cases, the officer has to decide whether to arrest you or give you a summons for a mandatory court appearance. In either case, the worst possible outcome is a conviction.

What Happens After a Traffic Conviction?

We’ve all heard about the penalties that come with traffic tickets. After being convicted of a traffic infraction, misdemeanor, or felony, you will be required to pay steep fines and fees. You might even have to pay attorneys fees and court costs or other surcharges, depending on where you got the ticket.

In addition to those costs, you’ll also have to bear the burden of non-monetary penalties like driver license points, the suspension of your license, and potential jail time. In certain jurisdictions, it’s even possible for the police to confiscate your vehicle.

Fines

Almost every traffic ticket comes with fines. There are a few places in the country where fix-it tickets—tickets where the fine is waived if you fix the problem—are issued, but those aren’t all that common. In most cases, you’ll be looking at between $50 and $1,000 in fines.

States like Nevada are known for their high ticket fines right about $1,000 for minor speeding offenses.

Non-moving violations tend to carry the lowest fines. In New York, these are typically about $150 before fees and surcharges.

Fees

It can be easy to confuse fines with fees, but the two have their differences. Fines are what you pay for the price of the ticket. Fees are what you pay for the price of court and conviction. Examples of fees include New York’s Driver Responsibility Assessment (DRA) Fee, attorneys’ fees, and court costs.

Insurance Increases

If you are convicted of a traffic offense, you will quite likely see your insurance premiums increase. How much they increase will depend on the specific circumstances surrounding your violation. 

For example, a speeding ticket tends to increase insurance rates by an average of 23.2% ($341). However, a DUI can cause your insurance premiums to increase by a whopping 73.9% ($1,086).

Since many traffic violations can stay on your visible record for up to four years, you could end up paying $1,364 in addition to fines and fees all for a single speeding ticket.

Points

Points on your license are like points in golf: The fewer you have, the better off you are. Government agencies use driver license points to keep track of drivers who violate the rules of the road. Each state has its own point schedule, or list of violations that cause points.

Suspension

Getting too many points on your license can result in the suspension thereof. But that’s not all that the court can suspend. Too many traffic convictions or a single serious conviction might enable the government to suspend your license, registration, and/or license plates.

Continued violations along the same lines could result in the complete revocation of your license. Whereas a suspended license can be returned to you after a period of time or after you address the court’s concerns, a revoked license will never come back to you. Instead, you will have to go through the process of getting a brand new license.

Jail

Misdemeanors and felonies are criminal violations. A conviction for an offense at this level may result in jail time. That jail time can range from a few days for a misdemeanor to the rest of your life for a felony.

How long you go to jail for depends on the charges against you, how well you present your case, and whether you secure a plea deal. In trials where jail is a possible penalty, you should always consider hiring a criminal defense attorney.

What Happens If I Don’t Pay After My Traffic Conviction?

If you don’t pay a traffic ticket after the court has found you guilty and convicted you for it, you will be in serious trouble. The police can charge you with failure to pay or ignoring a traffic ticket. 

In many jurisdictions, failure to pay  a traffic ticket after conviction is a misdemeanor offense. That means the penalties for this charge might be more severe than those of the ticket that you’re not paying.

Can I Appeal a Traffic Conviction?

In most cases, you are allowed to appeal traffic convictions. If you believe that the judge made a mistake and that the law is truly on your side, you can consider appealing the ticket in a higher court.

Two common reasons for appealing a traffic conviction are as follows: Error in law or fact or an unjust penalty. If the judge mistook one law for another and you were wrongfully pronounced guilty, the former reason would help you. If the judge issued you a penalty that were too cruel or unusual, the latter reason would help you.

There are plenty of other reasons to appeal a traffic conviction. In order to know whether you can appeal your traffic conviction, contact a lawyer through the WinIt app today.

How Long Will the Conviction Stay On My Record?

There are two answers to this question. The first is typically up to four years. The second is forever. The reason why there are two different answers is because there are two different records: your driving record abstract and your lifetime driving record.

Although traffic convictions can stay on your lifetime record for your entire lifetime, they will not always count against your license or your insurance. In most cases, convictions only stay on your license while they are active on your driving record abstract.

Insurance

For the most part, insurance company investigators are only allowed to see a small snippet of your driving record. That’s called the driving record abstract. In New York, for example, this covers a maximum of four years. More specifically, it covers until the end of the year in which the conviction took place and an additional three years.

How long an insurance company can see what’s on your record varies from state to state. The standard length of time is usually between two and four years.

DMV

The Department of Motor Vehicles keeps detailed records of everything related to your driving record. That includes addresses, former names, phone numbers, social security numbers, and so much more. If all of this information were to be available to the public, your identity could easily be stolen. That’s why the DMV only allows some information to be seen by some people.

The fact remains, however, that the DMV does keep track of all of the information related to your driving history. That includes traffic convictions of all shapes and sizes. In some jurisdictions, that even includes warnings. This information will stay on your record forever, unless it is expunged through legal means.

Will the Traffic Conviction Show Up On a Background Check?

There are two kinds of background checks that can show traffic convictions: criminal record checks and driving record checks.

If you have been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony traffic violation, then your conviction will show up on criminal record checks. Misdemeanor and felony traffic violations are criminal violations and therefore leave you with a criminal record.

Non-criminal traffic convictions, like many lesser speeding tickets, will not show up on criminal record checks. However, they will show up if somebody pulls your driving record. That might happen if you apply for a job that would require you to drive. Your potential employer might pull your record and reject you if you have too many convictions on your record.

That makes it all the more important that you prevent traffic tickets from ever becoming convictions in the first place.

Do I Have To Pay the Lawyer If I Get Convicted in Traffic Court?

In most cases, lawyers are not allowed to offer refunds if they lose your case. That means, with a traditional lawyer, you might end up paying even more than what the ticket would have originally cost.

With WinIt, that’s not the case. WinIt is not a lawyer, it’s an app that helps you find lawyers. This difference makes it possible for WinIt to offer no-risk guarantees for parking tickets and case protection options for traffic tickets. That way, if you hire a lawyer and they don’t get a successful outcome for you, you might not have to pay their full fee!

So, what are you waiting for? Keep that ticket off your record by contacting a lawyer through the WinIt app today.