Urban Legend About Pushing Off Trial Dates

There is an urban legend that if you push off the trial for your ticket for a certain period of time then you will not be impacted by the points upon conviction.

This is not true. This misinformation comes from a number of sources including shady ticket brokers and unclear information on DMV website, specifically footnote 2 on this official DMV webpage.

Points accrue by 18-month intervals. Any violation you get within 18 months of another violation is combined. It does not matter if you plead guilty to one ticket a day after you get it and are convicted of another ticket five years later. For more detailed information see blogpost “How Long Do Points Last On My License.”

Insurance premiums are a different calculation but also are not impacted by pushing off trial dates. Your insurance can go up for approximately three years (usually 39 months) after a conviction. It does not matter if you plead guilty a day after getting the ticket or you are convicted five years later.

The only actual benefit in pushing off your trial date is that it slightly increases the chances of the officer not appearing. Attorneys push off for this reason and sometimes in the hopes of getting before a more favorable judge at the next trial date. There are also other scenarios where pushing off is important. Such as someone who drives for a living at the moment and can’t lose his license today. Another example of an exception is where you were on insurance for the five years that you were pushing off the ticket and now are off the insurance.

In the vast majority of scenarios, if in fact you are convicted after five years of pushing it off, you did not gain anything. If you are on insurance the whole time then nothing was gained, from an insurance perspective. Your rates will go up from the date of conviction for around 3-4 years. You are paying higher rates for 3-4 years five years later instead of five years earlier.

Points going onto your record and the points having legal consequences are not the same thing. The legal consequences of points depend on the 18 months before and after the date of the violation. “Points” is a DMV creation. Insurance companies do not account for points. They simply look at violations. If something hits your record, then your insurance company will increase your rates for 3-4 years. They do not take into account the date of violation.

The DMV webpage that indicates to the contrary is simply badly written. See footnote 2 on this official DMV webpage:

“Once 18 months have passed from the violation date, the points for that violation no longer count toward your total. However, the points remain on your driving record as long as the conviction remains on your record and may be used by your insurance company to increase premiums.

It is just not true. The points can and do in fact count towards your total after 18 months have passed in such circumstances as when the driver is convicted after 18 months have passed from the violation. This incorrect information has been on the DMV webpage for a long time uncorrected.

If you received a traffic ticket in New York City, you can contact the Benjamin Goldman Law Office. We will give you accurate information and not over-promise. Our firm has helped many motorists in the city. We try to push the trial date for as long as possible when it makes sense. But more importantly, we try hard to win each case. If you have a ticket and you want to discuss your options, you can reach out to us. There is no fee for a consultation.