What would happen to me if I got pulled over in Bend Oregon and I did not have car insurance?

Becky

Bend, OR

Failure to provide proof of car insurance to a police officer when requested, is a class B traffic violation in Oregon. The state of Oregon has a mandatory insurance law which requires every motorist to insure their car.

Driving without insurance in Ben Oregon can result in fines (averaging around $300), suspension of your drivers license and in some areas your car can be towed. If the court convicts you of driving without insurance, you will need to file proof of future financial responsibility (SR-22) with the Department of Motor Vehicle for three years or else your driving privileges will stay suspended.

If you are caught driving uninsured and are involved in an accident, your driving privileges will be suspended for a year. After the period ends on your suspension you will have to carry an SR-22 for three years.

My teenager son just had his first traffic ticket. And I fear that it will affect the rate of my insurance policy in Manchester, NH since he is under my name. Is it going to cause my insurance to go up?

Rey

Manchester, NH

Yes. No matter which side of the coin you look at, having a traffic violation always means one thing – negative impact to the insured driver.

When my teenage daughter had her second speeding ticket, I was shocked on the increase in my car insurance policy. My rate increased from 50% – 150%. When she got her first speeding ticket, we used the deferment program for the first time and just paid the ticket. With this, given that my daughter does not get her second speeding ticket within the year, her traffic violation will be removed from her record, so my insurance company will never know about this. But unfortunately, she does it again within the same year. So my car insurance charged me with higher rate, more than I could imagine.

But you should know that such increase does not apply if your son was caught driving going 20 miles or more than the speed limit. Brace yourself, because you’re just up to paying even higher premium to your auto insurance.

It’s always important to remember that having a clean driving record is a significant factor on keeping our premium low. Teenagers should know the value of being a responsible driver. After that incident, I demanded that my daughter pay her share in our auto insurance. Since then, gone are the speeding tickets.

When I went to court for my speeding ticket, they told me that I would have to file an SR 22 form from now on. What does that mean?

Gale

Great question.

The SR 22 form is something that must be filed by your car insurance company whenever you commit a serious traffic violation, such as driving drunk or speeding fifteen miles over the limit. In some states, you don’t even have to commit an offense to have an SR 22 form filed. They file them for everybody. In states where they are filed for everybody, such as New York, it is pretty much impossible for someone to go without car insurance and not get found out. It’s the same way for anyone else who needs to file SR 22 car insurance. If you don’t have a car insurance company to file a form, then you could risk such serious consequences as losing your license.

The kind of car insurance that requires an SR 22 form is of the most expensive variety. When you commit an offense such as speeding or driving under the influence, then you are often moved into the highest risk group in the car insurance industry. A lot of times, your car insurance company will cancel your policy outright. If this happens, you might have a hard time finding a company to give you a policy and file an SR 22 form for you. If all else fails, you might be forced to join a state sponsored risk pool. Whatever you do, you will end up paying probably twice as much as you did on your previous premium now that you’re a high risk driver.

So does everything to do with the SR 22 form rest on your company’s shoulders? Nope, not at all. First of all, your car insurance company won’t know automatically that you need an SR 22 form, so if you don’t tell them, then you will get in trouble concerning your license. You have to call up your company, first, and tell them that you need SR 22 insurance. Sometimes you will need to take the SR 22 form to the Department of Motor Vehicles in addition to having your company file one. If this is the case, you can either have the insurance company mail you one, or print one out from your computer.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.