The Difference Between Moving Violations And Non Moving Violations
There are two broad categories of traffic tickets. Knowing which you have is important when determining what to do in your situation.
Sometimes if your ticket is not a serious one that gets reported to your auto insurance company, you may be better off just paying the fine and not challenging it in court.
Traffic violations come under two main headings. They can either be moving violations or non moving violations. They usually involve smaller fines and can be something as simple as a parking or headlight ticket.
These can be a nuisance but at least they wont go on your driving history or be reported to your auto insurance.
Non moving violations can be things such as not wearing your seatbelt, a broken headlight or improperly parking your vehicle.
These types of violations are usually better dealt with by just paying the fine. Taking the matter to court is more of a hassle on your part because the fine being imposed is normally not more than $50. The amount of time, energy and cost involved in contesting the charged violation is not worth it. Besides, these types of tickets are very hard to beat in court. I mean, either you parked illegally or you didn’t.
But if you felt the ticket was given unjustly, you should always attempt to resolve it in some way. For example a broken head light ticket will usually be tossed if you show proof you fixed it.
Moving violations are a violation of the law committed while the vehicle is in motion, and this term ‘motion’ distinguishes it from a non moving violation. While most moving violations are considered misdemeanors or infractions, more serious violations can be felonies.
Moving violations normally involve the payment of fines, and also having points assessed against the driving record of the driver. As points are accumulated more severe punishment can be ordered such as having to take defensive driving courses up to having your drivers license suspended.
Here in the United States, citation fines are nominal dollar amounts, usually between $50 and $500. In some countries, however, they are proportional to the violator’s income and fines in excess of $100,000 can be assessed to wealthy individuals.
Some of the more common moving violations include speeding, failure to stop at a stop sign or red light, failure to yield, crossing the median, violating HOV lanes or driving too slow for current road conditions.
Some examples of serious moving violations are drunk driving, racing on a public road, road rage and vehicular homicide.
Traffic violations are also broken down into either civil or criminal. While they both have points and fines associated with them, only criminal violations can wind up you up in jail.
Sentences handed down in criminal violations are obligations to the state for acts committed. The term ’state’ can be a city, town, state or federal government or any other kind of m municipality. These are moving violations to avoid at all costs, obviously.