Traffic tickets can be a lot more expensive than the fine and court costs stated on the ticket. For most traffic tickets, if you just pay off the ticket, you will be convicted of the charge, and you will be assessed points both on your driver’s license and on your insurance policy. Insurance points can be very expensive. They cause your insurance premiums to increase for three years, and for most policies, that will add up to thousands of dollars. Details about insurance points and the percentage of premium increases can be found here. In addition to insurance points, convictions for many charges, and convictions for multiple charges will result in the revocation of your driver’s license. The loss of one’s driving privilege entails more costs for most people.  Here are some examples of revocations for convictions.

In this great recession, many people are being short sighted and think they are saving money by not hiring an experienced attorney to represent them with their traffic charges. The result is that the ticket costs them much more than they would have paid an attorney to handle it for them.

Collins Law Firm has handled thousands of traffic tickets for our clients over the past ten plus years, and in most cases we have been able to avoid insurance points altogether. Furthermore, for most simple tickets (stop sign violations, speeding violations, etc.), our clients do not even need to go to court. We offer free phone consultations for most traffic matters. If you need advice or information about representation for a traffic violation, call us at: 910-793-9000.

Labor Day is over, school started back and it is almost fall. We hope everybody had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend. There was heavy traffic in most parts of the country and if you happened to get a speeding ticket or traffic citation in Southeast North Carolina, Collins Law Firm can help.

In most cases, so long as you have a clean driving records for speeding tickets at non-excessively high speeds, we can avoid court appearances and points on both your insurance and DMV record. For people with violations already on their record, there are still ways in most cases that points can be avoided. In some cases the defendant may have to go to driving school and in some cases a Prayer for Judgement Continued (PJC) maybe used. However, PJC is a valuable option to dispose of a traffic charge which should only be used when necessary.

For example, if there are multiple members of a household and one person uses a PJC, if another person in the household gets a traffic citation within the next three years and receives a PJC, insurance points will assessed for that violation.

Collins Law Firm has been representing people charged with traffic citations, speeding tickets, and other criminal charges in Southeast North Carolina for over ten years and we will be happy to discuss your situation with you by phone at no charge if you receive a traffic citation. Call the Collins Law Firm at (910) 793-9000.

Hurricane Earl has passed our area, and thankfully without inflicting much serious damage to our area.

Now we are heading into a busy Labor Day weekend. The American Automobile Association (AAA) is predicting a 10% increase in travelers on the road this year over last year. They predict that about 34.4 million people are likely to take trips of at least 50 miles.

That means that everyone needs to take greater precautions and plan for heavier traffic and slower travel paces. Law enforcement is likely to be stepped up this weekend and many people will likely receive speeding tickets or other traffic citations, and there are likely to be more accidents on the road than on non-holiday weekends. There are also likely to be impaired drivers and boaters who will receive DWI/DUI’s and BWI/BUI’s (boating while impaired/under the influence).

Anyone who receives a ticket or other criminal charges, or who is involved in an accident can call Collins Law Firm for a consultation about what we can do to help. We have been serving Southeastern North Carolina around the Wilmington, NC area for over ten years, representing people charged with traffic tickets or other criminal charges and people injured in traffic accidents or crashes.

Please be safe and have a wonderful weekend!

Collins Law Firm

If you get a speeding ticket outside of North Carolina as a North Carolina licensed driver and just pay it off, it could cause your license here to be revoked.   Because of the Interstate Driver License Compact, the vast majority of states exchange information for moving convictions in motor vehicles.  If you get a speeding ticket in a member state for speeding more than 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, and the speed at which you are charged to have been speeding is 55 miles per hour or more, your license in North Carolina will very likely be revoked.   Similarly, if you are charged with speeding more than ten miles per hour over the speed limit in a 70 mile per hour zone or higher, your license in North Carolina will very likely be revoked.

Once the NC Department of Motor Vehicles gets notification of such a conviction, the NC licensed driver will be sent notification of the pending revocation and given notice of the right to have a hearing.  If the DMV hearing is not requested properly within the time frame allowed for such a request, the revocation will go into effect and it will no longer be possible to request a hearing.

If you have received such a notice, Collins Law Firm can help.   Give us a call at (910) 793-9000 to discuss the details.