The point system in Fort Worth is one of the big motivaters for people to get Fort Worth car insurance before they hit the the road. It is both a convenient move for the state of Texas and an extremely expensive pain for anyone who winds up on its bad side. How does it work? People who get ticketed for traffic violations get a certain number of points, depending on what they did (or didn’t) do. If you have a certain amount of points, then not only are you going to be looking at possible future license suspension and higher car insurance rates, but also you will have to pay from hundreds to over a thousand dollars a year for three years to the DMV. One of the fastest ways to accrue points is to get caught driving without valid insurance.

Called the Driver Responsibility Program, it does not have penalties in points for every wrong you can do on the road. You have to get more than 10% over the limit to wrangle points on a speeding ticket, for example, although you will probably still see car insurance rate increases.

The trouble for most people is, that you don’t need very many points to have to pay the big fines. Six points in less than three years, and your wallet will be considerably lighter. And the fines are the last step before your license gets suspended–but even if your license ends up being suspended, you still have to pay fines. Here are a couple of fineable offenses:

• At fault car accident gets you three points
• Moving violation gets you one point

Once you have your points, there’s no getting rid of them for awhile. You will continue having to pay a couple hundred dollars every year to keep your license, even after the three year period of major fines is over. There’s basically no maximum amount that they can charge you, and trying to fight it is useless.

DWIs are the ones that really bring in the revenue, all the more reason for you to call a taxi if you go over the limit. Just the first time that you end up driving while intoxicated, you’ll have to pay a thousand dollars a year for three years. And if your blood alcohol level was over 0.16, then that’s two thousand dollars a year. The worst part is that they can then put the two together, so that over three years you end up paying nine thousand dollars.

So, the moral of the story is, stay insured and sober.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.