For those who have had the pleasure of traffic school: Have any of you ever done it as a home study course with a booklet, or with a CD Rom or DVD, or as an online course? If so, how are the required minutes of instruction accounted for? I know they are court-approved, but are these courses really as good as the regular ones that meet in a room with live bodies?
Your first mistake is assuming that the real-world ones are any good. You may pick up an interesting little factoid or two, but it’s really a huge waste of time. If the county you got nailed in (This is CA, don’t know about other states) allows for online traffic school, jump on it. Honestly, what are you going to learn about driving from a failed stand-up comedian?
The last ticket I got I was able to take an online school for (don’t remember which one). It was a cakewalk. Time was not accounted for in any meaningful way. It’s just lots of reading and such that, if you were to actually do it all, might come kinda close to 7-8 hours. The one I took was divided into about 5-6 sections, with a quiz at the end of the page that required you to get some percentage correct to move on. I quickly figured out that I could skip the reading, find some unique keyword in each question at the end, search the page for that same keyword, and easily find the right answer. All told, including registration, payment, etc. I was done in about 30 minutes.
I did online traffic school (also in California) several months ago. It was really easy and I have a total crap dial-up connection at home. I think I finished in about an hour. My experience was essentially that of spiralscratch’s. If you are halfway intelligent and have taken any kind of standardized test before you’ll breeze through. Remember, they design these things to be accessible to the lowest common denominator, not someone smart enough to become a Doper.
I did traffic school (in a college campus classroom, on a Saturday, for eight hours) about two years ago. The instructor was good, but it was a very long day, and of course you couldn’t just get up and go outside to stretch any time you needed to. I’ll check out the online or home study ones instead. Thanks for the scoop.
When I got a stupid rolling stop ticket (I know I stopped, and twice) I looked into online traffic school. Actually got a list of them from DMV. Went for the one that looked the least expensive and time intensive.
Really easy to do, though when it was time for them to issue my certificate they hemmed and hawwed about a law saying you must show in person somewhere to take the final test. I bitched and moaned since the website specifically said you didn’t have to. They acquiesced and gave me my certificate.
I would definitely check if you have to ATTEND the final testing so that they know that you are you.
The first two tickets I got in LA I was able to do online traffic school. A breeze.
I recently got one in Fullerton, and was barred from online options. So I spent Saturday in a church classroom. At least it was the Pizza4UGreatComedians traffic school.
And for the benefit of those like me who originate from a state without this wonder, it works like this: the California DMV, when you get a moving violation, gives you “points” on your driving record, that essentially last about 7 years. Each point is a signal to your auto insurance company to raise your rates.
If you wish to avoid the points and the rate increase, you may (provided you have gone at least a year and a half without a violation) undergo 8-12 hours of “traffic school”, where an instructor goes over the driving laws in excrutiating detail for the class. Your proof of completion gets the points off your record.
RSSchen: The CHP just got me for one of those Stupid Rolling Stops too.
Sigh.
I have already printed out the lists of options from the LA Superior Court website. I’m looking into either a booklet or a pizza/comedy one at this point but still haven’t made the final choice. I have till the end of April, anyhow.
I did one online called Traffic101 in 1999. I don’t know if it still exists in the same format today.
It was so easy. It had no time tracking and you could get your certificate online in about 15 minutes.
There were about 5 chapters with a quiz at the end of each chapter. Then, there was a cumulative final exam. All tests had only true-false questions.
I started the program, clicked forward through about 20 pages of material to the first quiz, and clicked all the answers “true.” Then, I scored the quiz, and it showed me exactly where I had gotten about half the questions wrong. I hit the “back” button and changed the wrong answers to “false.” I scored the quiz again and got 100%!
I moved fast forward to the next quiz and final, repeating this strategy. 100%!
Yes, Traffic101 still exists. I’d already marked it this morning as being a possibility.
I’ve done classroom and online. Classroom about 20 years ago, bad news, nasty instuctor, very long day.
Online about 6-7 years back, I was done in less than an hour.
I recommend online hands down.
FYI, if you have a CDL your not eligible for “Traffic School”, it’s called masking and was removed as an option several years ago.
I took an online class a few months ago (FL). It was very easy. Comprised into several sections, it was mostly reading a few pages, then answering a few practice questions before the next section. It was ‘timed’ so each section was 20 minutes, or 30 minutes, and you had to wait until the timer counted down before you could continue on. The total time allotted was 4 hours, but I spent all of 5 minutes reading the text, the rest playing online. The final test included questions like, ‘Should you look both ways before crossing railroad tracks?’ and ‘What does DUI stand for?’ Too easy.
I got my certificate without a hassle in the mail shortly after.
A couple of years ago I was required to attend an 8-hour driver reeducation class in order to keep my license, due to too many accidents in too small a time period. It had some interesting moments, but it was very long. We shared stories, did quizzes, filled out booklets and even partnered up for one activity. It stuck in my head more, especially hearing what some of the other people had done :eek: