If you’ve recently had a speeding ticket that you don’t feel is fair, are concerned about points on your license, or don’t want the speeding ticket infraction to cause your insurance rates to go up, then you’ll need a lawyer.
Typically speeding ticket cases are handled by traffic attornies that handle almost any kind of case that involves traffic violations or infractions. Of course, you can get any lawyer to represent you, but a lawyer specializing in speeding tickets will likely be a cheaper and better option than a probate lawyer.
If you’re curious about the average cost of a lawyer for speeding tickets, then keep reading and ensure that you understand the costs between paying a ticket, disputing a ticket by yourself, and how paying a lawyer can benefit your long-term costs.
Average Cost For A Lawyer To Handle Your Speeding Ticket
The average cost of a lawyer for your speeding ticket depends on what you need. If you need them to appear in court quickly so that you don’t have to appear, it will cost on average between $60 – $150.
| Complexity | Average Cost |
| Appearance in Court | $60 – $150 |
| Basic Speeding Ticket Defence | $200 – $500 |
| Contest A Speeding Ticket | $900 – $2000 |
| Complex Speeding Ticket Defence | $2000 – $5000 |
For most basic speeding ticket defenses or standard contesting of a speeding ticket, a flat fee is a general practice for lawyers. Typically they don’t need to meet you outside of court; it’s a matter of checking your case and then applying standard knowledge to get the best result.
If there are other factors and complexity in your speeding ticket case, then the flat fee can be increased, or you may be moved to an hourly rate, which on average is $100 – $300 per hour, but as the complexity increases and if you go for top tier lawyers, the hourly rate can skyrocket.
Appearance in Court
The average cost of a lawyer to appear in court for you on a speeding ticket is $60 – $150. This will involve the lawyer simply appearing for a few minutes, answering questions, and trying to quickly get the speeding ticket removed.
One of the key plans with a simple appearance is to see whether the officer that issued the speeding ticket turns up. If the officer doesn’t turn up, then the speeding ticket may be dismissed, and it costs you up to the price of the actual ticket, but you don’t get points or insurance increases.
It also means that if the lawyer appears for you in court, you don’t need to go yourself, which can save you money if you don’t have holiday time out or your boss won’t let you take time off.
Basic Speeding Ticket Defense
The average cost of a lawyer to handle your basic speeding ticket defense is $200 – $500. This will involve them showing up to court and using standard methods to get your speeding ticket reduced or dismissed.
If there are no extenuating circumstances and you can’t really dispute your speeding ticket, then the best option is simply to have a lawyer or yourself discuss your situation and see whether the ticket can be reduced.
Lawyers who handle hundreds of these types of cases will know the best methods to quickly get reductions or limited points for your license.
So even if there is no reason your speeding ticket should be reduced, this is a good option if you’re worried about points of your license or insurance premium increases.
Contest A Speeding Ticket
The average cost of a lawyer to contest a speeding ticket with more than the standard options they use for most minor cases is $900 – $2,000.
Ensure the benefits you will get out of this sort of service are worth a much higher price than your actual ticket and potentially your insurance premiums.
Contesting a speeding ticket is best done when there are other factors and issues to discuss that may require you to go to court over the issue and do more than just discuss options for reducing the ticket.
Complex Speeding Ticket Defense
The average cost of a lawyer for a complex speeding ticket defense is $2,000 – $5,000 and would likely mean there are other factors in the case, multiple tickets, or even multiple different violations.
This could involve a speeding ticket that results in no insurance tags, busted taillights, and other traffic violations that all need to be dealt with together.
Each violation could result in points on your license, and the more points you get, the higher the chances go of your license being revoked and how much higher your insurance premiums will be for the next 2 – 10 years.
In some cases, the $2,000 – $5,000 cost and the lawyer may be the only thing that is stopping your license from being revoked instantly if you admit guilt on the tickets.
Average Speeding Ticket Costs
A speeding ticket will cost you $150 on average, and your insurance rates may go up by $355 on average per year for at least 2-3 years. The speeding ticket could stay on your record for ten years in some states.
Speeding tickets are on a scale, so the more you go over the speed limit, the higher the costs will be for you and the more worthwhile hiring a lawyer will be.
You’ll also be charged more if you already have other speeding tickets on your license, so the costs below are the minimum average for first-time offenders.
| Speed | Cost Of Ticket |
| Speeding 30+ MPH over the limit | $360 – $600 |
| Speeding 11-30 MPH Over Limit | $90 – $300 |
| Speeding 1-10 MPH Over Limit | $90 – $150 |
The more speeding tickets you have, the higher your insurance costs will go, and in some cases, the insurer may not want to insure you at all or will make the costs too substantial for you to actually be able to pay them.
If your insurance rates do go up, then you’ll need to shop around for cheaper insurance which may be possible, so it’s worth checking before staying with your current insurer.
| Average Cost Of Insurance | Cost |
| No Speeding Tickets | $1,674 |
| One Speeding Ticket | $2,029 |
So while a speeding ticket may be cheaper to pay in the short term than hiring a lawyer, your long-term costs can be much more. If you’re dangerously close to losing your license due to speeding tickets, you could risk losing your job as well.
What A Lawyer Can Do For Your Speeding Ticket
In most cases, your lawyer will look for technicalities with how the speeding ticket was given or how your speed was registered. The lawyer will attempt to have your speeding ticket canceled or will fight to get it reduced so your driving record is less impacted and your insurance rates don’t go up significantly.
Speeding tickets are only traffic infractions, so you can’t go to jail. Your only issue and the only job of your lawyer is to handle the fine and the impact of the speeding ticket.
Speeding Tickets And Points On Your License
Your speeding ticket can put points on your driver’s license, and if you get enough points, you could lose your license for some time; for typical infractions, it may only be 30 days.
So even the number of points reduced can benefit you long term, especially if you already have speeding ticket points on your license or have points from other traffic violations.
In California, for example, you can receive 0 – 3 points depending on how serious your traffic violation was; for a simple speeding ticket, you may only get 1 point. However, as your points rack up, the closer you come to losing your license for six months.
| Points Required to Lose Your License | Time Frame To Get Points |
| 4 | 12 Months |
| 6 | 24 Months |
| 8 | 36 Months |
Not All States Have A Traffic Violation Points System
There are only nine states that don’t have a points system; however, they still monitor your driving record and could arbitrarily take your license away. The states with no points system include:
- Hawaii
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Washington
- Wyoming
Speeding Tickets And Insurance Increases
Because your insurance can go up by $355 on average for at least 2-3 years and up to 10 years, the impact on your insurance costs is significant, and the more speeding tickets you get, the higher the cost goes. So getting the speeding ticket dismissed or reduced has significant cost savings as well.
Average insurance increases depend on the speed over the limit you were going. So consider the cost savings if a lawyer can get your ticket reduced from 30+ MPH over to under 29 MPH.
| Speed | Insurance Percent Increase |
| Speeding 30+ MPH over the limit | 30% |
| Speeding 16-29 MPH over Limit | 22% |
| Speeding 1-15 MPH over Limit | 20% |
Do You Need A Lawyer For Your Speeding Ticket?
It’s not required that you retain a lawyer to get a speeding ticket dismissed. The first step in the process is contesting the ticket and showing up to traffic court, where the officer that issued the ticket must appear, or your ticket may be dismissed.
So by simply contesting and showing up to court, you could save yourself many of the fees from a lawyer, at a minimum that will be $60 – $150 or the actual flat rate fees to contest your ticket, which is up to $2000.
There are a variety of fees charges once you start trying to contest a speeding ticket; a lawyer can often get these reduced or removed, whereas you may not, and the costs could get added on top of your speeding ticket fee.
| Cost Type | Cost With Lawyer | Cost Without A Lawyer |
| Speeding ticket cost | $150 | $150 |
| Lawyer to contest the ticket | $900 | $0 |
| Attend Traffic School | $55 | $55 |
| Court Operations | $40 | $40 |
| Conviction Fee | $35 | $35 |
| State Penalty Assessment | $10 | $10 |
| County Penalty Assessment | $5 | $5 |
| Court Fee | $5 | $5 |
| DNA ID Fee | $4 | $4 |
| State Surcharge | 20% of Ticket | 20% of Ticket |
If you don’t hire a lawyer, contest your ticket and go to court, your $150 speeding ticket may be increased to $334 if you fail to get the speeding ticket dismissed.
If you fail to get the ticket dismissed, the fees are still likely below a lawyer’s fees, so if you have a good hardship story, you can likely just discuss that with the officer or justice of the peace.
How To Reduce Your Speeding Ticket
If you do contest your speeding ticket, there are a number of options to reduce the costs and other issues that come along with a speeding ticket. You need to carefully consider and weigh the costs of paying the ticket, getting points on your driver’s license, and the increased insurance premiums vs. losing your ticket dispute. Once you do dispute it, the costs start to increase whether you win or not.
- In most jurisdictions, there are major delays on speeding ticket disputes, so by simply disputing the speeding ticket, you can delay the payment until you can come up with the funds, and you can push the speeding ticket further away from other speeding tickets on your license.
- Discuss with the judge your situation and ask for a reduction on the speeding ticket. The judge can determine if this speeding ticket will cause hardship, such as a loss of license that would cause you to lose your job or an inability to pay the speeding ticket.
- Try to show up early and talk to the officer that issued the speeding ticket. They may consider reducing the violation on the ticket if you agree to plead guilty. This can save them time, and their ticket stats won’t be impacted as heavily as if you had won.
- If the officer that issued the speeding ticket doesn’t show up, your speeding ticket may be dismissed, but in some states, the officer may get three chances to show up before it’s dismissed. You should determine how many times the officer can fail to show before your speeding ticket is dismissed.
