Texas Defensive Driving Online

Take Texas Defensive Driving Online and save time!
Dismiss tickets and lower your insurance rates!

I just took the defensive driving course from GetDefensive.com. They only charge $25.00, many places will charge you $40.00 for the same thing. The advantage of taking the defensive driving course online is that you don't have to sit through it all at one time, you don't have to give up an entire saturday. It is a 6 hour DSC course as required by Texas law and I did about an hour a day. Just log out when you are done and it will save your spot, when you log back in you continue where you left off.

They have timers on the pages so you can't just breeze through it without reading it all. You can't advance to the next page until you have spent the required amount of time on the current page. They have animations and movies in the defensive driving course so you won't get too bored. At the end of the DSC you take the final exam and if for some reason you don't pass, you can reread the material and you will have 2 more chances to take the test. The defensive driving test consists of 20 multiple choice questions and you must answer 14 correctly to pass. They will send you two copies of your defensive driving certificate after you have passed the course. One DSC certificate is for the courts and one is for your insurance company. There is no easier way to take defensive driving!

You may want to get a radar detector to save you from getting future tickets. I have had a Cobra detector for years and wouldn't drive without it. The few tickets I have received are from officers standing in the road with instant on/off radar guns. My detector doesn't seem to work on these types of speed traps, it has however saved me many times from patrol cars cruising with radar on. Some detectors will also warn you of approaching emergency vehicles. Click to Read Reviews on Radar Detectors

It is NOT legal to have a radar detector in a commercial vehicle.

Urban Legends for Texas Drivers Circulating by email

1-800-525-5555 is the phone number on the back of your Texas Drivers License in very small print. So small in fact that I think they must not want you to call. At any rate there is an urban legend circulating by email that says you can call this number for roadside assistance and a state operated service truck will be sent to help you. The email claims it is paid for with your tax dollars. Knowing how state government operates my first thought was they probably take longer to arrive than AAA, who is never fast. I typed the phone number into a search engine to find out the truth. You can call the number if your vehicle is broke down on the side of the road and they will send a tow truck which you will have to pay for. You can also use this phone number to report a drunk driver.

There is also an email circulating about new Texas traffic laws that went into effect July 2007. The DPS says there are no new traffic laws for July 2007. New traffic laws that go into effect Sept. 1 2007 can be found here.

The new law below is true and will no doubt give the insurance companies yet another reason to raise our rates.

SB 502 increases the minimum liability coverage amounts for automobile insurance. The first
increase applies to motor vehicle liability insurance policies issued or renewed after January 1, 2008. A second, larger increase in motor vehicle liability insurance coverage takes effect on January 1, 2011.

Might be a good time to call your insurance agent and see how much of a discount you can get for taking a defensive driving class. Getting a rate quote from GEICO.com might also prove to be a good idea. Maybe that little green lizard with the funny accent can get you a lower rate.

I have gone to court on several traffic tickets I didn't deserve and won the case without a lawyer. If you really didn't deserve the ticket you received you should probably go fight it. If you have a good defense you may not need to hire a lawyer. I have gone to court in Harris County several times on traffic tickets and find they clear out half the room by offering to let you pay your ticket for half price. It can be worth showing up just to get the price of your ticket reduced. I don't know if they use this same tactic in the Houston courts. I only know that most traffic tickets are way too expensive.

One tactic lawyers often use it to keep putting the case off. Often by the time you go to court, the officer who wrote the ticket doesn't show up and you win by default. I have no idea what plan B is, if the officer shows up and you really are guilty. I always opt for taking defensive driving online over driving downtown to court several times.