Hello there,

I was in Washington last weekend and received a traffic speeding ticket on my way up to Vancouver in Whatcom County. For some reason, I-5 switches to 60mph speed limits from 70mph in random places. Anyways, I was indeed speeding and I accept that. Everyone in Washington seems to drive really slow but I digress

I am trying to just pay the ticket but I want to make sure this doesn't affect my insurance rates here in California. Some research online has revealed that CA and WA may use the same database in keeping track of traffic infractions. In CA, you can simply take an online traffic school program to have the infraction removed from your record. Obviously, I cannot attend any court hearings since I am in CA nor do I really want to hire an attorney, but it turns out WA has a deferral findings program where they will not report the infraction to the database if you do not get another traffic ticket in WA within the year...for a hefty fee. I am guessing i have to pay the $175 deferral fee and the original ticket amount $180?

Just want to reach out to anyone who may be from Whatcom or anywhere in WA that may give advice to me on the issue. I am pretty sure this is the way I am going to handle the citation, but does anyone have anything to add? A lot of forums out there talk about having to send a written letter requisition the deferral but the Whatcom website has an electronic deferral filing system for a fee of $10...

 

WA resident here. It's been years since I got my last ticket, and it was in Pierce County, so take this with a grain of salt.

But I had no problem getting the judge to defer my ticket, because I had to pay court costs equivalent to the fine, and that was all he really cared about. I kept my nose clean for two years and it dropped off my record and was not reported to insurance.

Oh, and there's a reason we all drive slow -- very strict speed enforcement.

 

My wife had a recent ticket here in Snohomish County (Everett area). We did the deferral on it and would recommend that route.

Her ticket was $140 as I recall. We paid $125 to defer it. It was never reported to insurance, we saved $15 and all ended well as she did not get another ticket after that. Like in Whatcom, we just had to fill out the online form and pay through the county web site. No big deal.

 

Thanks guys. I had to call the court to make sure and I paid the deferral fee of 185 which came out to be 2 dollars cheaper than the ticket