The True Cost Of A Speeding Ticket In Illinois

 Posted on April 18, 2017 in Traffic violation

If you’re like most drivers, odds are you’ve spotted the red and blue cherries of a police cruiser in your rearview mirror at one point or another. Hopefully you weren’t going too far above the speed limit, but you can still end up schilling out hundreds of dollars even if you were only going a couple miles faster than the posted limit. Today, we take a closer look at the hidden costs of a speeding ticket, and we get to the bottom of the true cost of a speeding ticket in Illinois.

Speeding Ticket Cost In Illinois

Speeding costs typically vary a little throughout the state. Here’s a rough breakdown of the base fine you can be expected to pay based on your speed:

• 1 to 20 mph over the speed limit – $120 fine.

• 21 to 30 mph over the speed limit – $140 fine.

• 31 mph or more over the speed limit – $160 fine.

You might be thinking, “Well, that’s really not too awful of a fine, and I was in fact speeding, so I’ll just pay the fine and move on.” However, the costs don’t stop there.

Insurance Increases

You may have to pay an electronic filing fee or a miscellaneous court fee when you pay your ticket, but the true hidden costs lie in the insurance increases. A recent study revealed that after one speeding ticket, an Illinois driver can expect their insurance premiums to increase roughly $10 a month. That doesn’t seem too bad, until you realize that in Illinois, insurance increases can last for up to five years. $10 a month over the course of the next 60 months means you’ll be paying an extra $600 in insurance premiums over the next five years. When you add in the original fine, you’ll see that the average true cost of a speeding ticket in Illinois falls somewhere between $720 and $760.

So what should you do if you received a speeding ticket in Illinois? For starters, don’t just assume that paying the fine is your best bet. As you can see, that one citation will likely cost you more than $700 in the long run, so consider challenging the citation on your own or hiring a legal team to fight the charge on your behalf. You may not think that it’s worth it to hire an attorney for a speeding ticket that’s barely more than a hundred dollars, but now that you see how the hidden fees add up, hiring a lawyer for a speeding charge can pay for itself in no time.

So if you are considering fighting a recent speeding ticket in Naperville, Aurora or a nearby city, reach out to the lawyers at Appelman Law. We offer a free case review, so we’ll sit down with you and walk you through your case – no strings attached. If you like what you hear, hire us on and we’ll do everything in our power to help you win your case. To set up that free meeting, click here.