Speeding ticket can cost you more than $900 in Illinois
True ticket costs are hard to stomach in many Illinois cities.
It’s Independence Day weekend. You’re driving out to the suburbs, into the city, up to a lake or maybe down to the state capitol. You’re going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit. Lights flash. You hear: “License and registration please.” You’re on the hook for $120. Or so you think.
The true cost of that ticket could be much more, depending on where you receive it.
Consumer-finance site NerdWallet has researched just how much speeding tickets cost drivers in Illinois by taking into account the resulting increase in drivers’ insurance rates.
Over a five-year period (how long insurance hikes typically last in Illinois, according to NerdWallet), a speeding ticket in Chicago runs drivers $846.55. At more than six times the cost of the actual ticket, that’s months of food, rent or care for the family they’ll be watching fireworks with this weekend.
And Chicago’s not even in the top 10, as car-insurance rates vary from place to place.
Harvey, Cicero, Park Ridge, Berwyn and Calumet City round out the top five in the state, each with a true ticket cost of over $900.
Speeding in Evanston or Vernon Hills has much less of a financial impact; there, drivers pay the least in insurance hikes, with true ticket costs of $577.40 and $588.75, respectively.
The fine on the tickets handed out by police officers only accounts for $120 of a speeding ticket’s total cost. But if you had been caught going less than 20 miles per hour over the speed limit in Illinois on Independence Day five years ago, it would have cost $45 less.
The fine was hiked overnight to $120 from $75 in September 2010 because it hadn’t been increased in a while.
Lawmakers should keep in mind the true cost of driving above the speed limit in Illinois. It’s not as simple as paying a fine.