Think speeding tickets only hurt your car insurance?

Desperate times call for desperate measures and cities around the nation are getting pretty desperate. Thanks to those speed monitoring camera vans and red light cameras, cities have been able to cite drivers in record numbers. If you’re like thousands of drivers you’ve probably thrown those tickets right in the trash – I mean – never received them. In the past you’ve likely gotten away with the “well they can’t prove I ever received it” excuse, but as strains on the economy pressure the state and city budgets you can bet that they will be trying a bit harder to collect. You still may not ever have a court server knocking at your door to hand you your ticket directly because hiring those guys cost some serious cash, so now you may just have your ticket sent to collections. Ouch.

This traffic and parking ticket crack down means that even if you are able to hide your speeding or illegal parking habits from your car insurance company by not paying your ticket, you now may end up with a huge hit to your credit report; we are talking 50 to 130 points! Arizona cities haven’t officially announced their use of collection agencies quite yet but we have been seeing these types of collections pick up around the country. With millions of dollars of outstanding tickets floating around the valley and with even more money required to keep the state running, you can bet your credit report that they’ll be looking to make you pay even if they never see the cash.

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