Q: I got a ticket on May last year but got another ticket towards the end of April this year, will my license be suspended?
Will I still be able to get court supervision and apply for traffic school?
If I cannot get traffic school, can I take the class outside of court so my insurance rate won't go up?
For my last ticket in May, I got court supervision and attended traffic school and didn't violate my supervision.
A:
First, no, your license will not be suspended at least based on receiving two tickets for which one resulted in a successful court supervision. That said, I am saying this in the abstract because there are types of tickets that can, on their own, result in a suspension. The rule for suspensions for numerous violations is a suspension results if you have one of the following: 3 moving violation convictions in a 12 month period and are 21 years of age or older OR 2 moving violation convictions in a 24 month period and you are under 21 years of age. Assuming your second ticket is not what the secretary of state calls an "immediate action" offense, a suspension will not result solely on its violation (even if supervision is received for certain offenses, some of these can trigger suspensions).
As for the question of traffic school, yes, technically you can but in practice, most courts would reject a mailed in request for court supervision in this case. Some courts like Kane County literally print pamphlets making clear that mail in supervision CANNOT be received if there was a ticket in the last 12 months. In these cases, the best way to secure court supervision is to appear in court yourself and request it.
If you can receive court supervision, it will appear on what is known as your court purposes record but not your public record. This means it is not available to insurance companies or employers (with the exception of the secretary of state, police, prosecutors, attorneys, and certain other agencies privy to such court records).
If you are worried about getting court supervision, you can seek the help of an attorney. As an added benefit, in most cases, attorneys are able to appear for their clients in court preventing them from needing to take a day off of work.
Hope that helps and let me know if you have any further questions!
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