thatguyjosh

So back in October while I was on my way to the Hill Country Drive in Austin I got stopped in Georgetown, TX by a State Highway Patrol officer and got a speeding ticket for 80/70. My lawyer went to court for me last week and got me deferred for 3 months, and $89 for court fees. I thought that was cool, I was expecting to pay $200 or so.

Well, then the next day the lawyer calls me back and tells me he was just notified by the courts that a new law was JUST passed saying that anyone 25 or younger in the state of Texas that gets a speeding ticket has to do DEFERRED AND DEFENSIVE DRIVING if they want to keep the ticket off their record. So he tells me to just complete a defensive driving course during my 3 month probation period and the ticket will be dismissed.

After doing some searching on Google, I couldn't find any other information about this new law so I called the court to see what's going on. They verified everything the lawyer told me and said the law just went into effect a couple of weeks ago.

Anyone else heard of this??

SpeedxRacer

Well that sucks for us young folks.. Never heard of anything like this. I thought it would be on the news or so since this pretty much effects alot of people.

C6400hp

If you received your ticket before the law was in effect, why would it apply to you?

Doug0716

I got hit by this a few months ago... and it also came up in conversation here on one of the other topics but I don't remember which one.

Really does suck, just another 1.25 years for me though (yay, insurance discounts!!!)
-Doug

CosmosMpower

It's supposed to be in effect as of this April. I talked to a few lawyers and they didn't know exactly what the details were but I got a speeding in a school zone ticket last month and I thought this would apply to me. However, my ticket was in March so the nice clerk for Dallas County told me to just send defensive driving paperwork request in and she would grant it.

I sent it in and got my request granted so all I have to do is do DD not probation and it will cost me about 150 total. I think courts are starting to enforce it but it's not a statewide standard yet so just check with the court on a case by case basis. I've heard a few different scenarios regarding this new law, some people say you only have to do both if you want to do probation, otherwise you can just do DD some people say you have to do both no matter what.

If you got your ticket last month or a few months ago this would not apply to you except for the fact that the court didn't hear your case till last week and it's now April and the law is in effect. Probably should've just sent in for defensive driving right when you got the ticket and that's it.

I've still got 2.5 years left

thatguyjosh

At the time I got the ticket I had done defensive driving 9 months before, so I couldn't request it. So that's why I got my lawyer to request probation.

Ok I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting lied to, thanks guys.

Josh

Doug0716

Technically the wording is if you havn't taken defensive driving within a year of getting the ticket... but I've heard that most courts don't check stuff like that.
-Doug

kumar75150

I doubt this is a "new" law. I had to do this in Dallas 2-3 years ago and again for a ticket I got in Waco. Just finishing up defensive driving right now. The first time they told me about it, I was so pissed.

Tx_Phantom

One time I requested a deferred and the county required a DD course in addition to the 3 months (and I was over the age of 25),...

miss.s2k

Same thing happen to my husband. i think that it is a law