I got a speeding ticket last June in a suburb of Chicago; my first. On my ticket, I was given the option of paying an extra amount, going to traffic school, and the ticket would not show up on my driving record. I chose that option.
I received a form allowing me to indicate a preference for location & time. Great. I chose the one most convenient for me, in downtown Chicago. Also, if I need to, I can reschedule for a $15 fee.
The other day, I receive instructions to attend Traffic School in Milwaukee, WI, on a Friday evening from 6pm till 10pm. There’s a phone number to call with questions, but the dozen or so times I’ve called, it’s busy. Except once, I navigated a voice mail maze, only to be cut off after waiting for about half an hour.
Nowhere in the letter I got or on the voice mail I heard was there an indication of whether I have an option of attending a class any nearer to my house. (Milwaukee is 70 miles away, and it will be rush hour).
Not that speeders are entitled to a lot of sympathy, but this whole setup seems like a scam. If I show up at Traffic Class, I’ll bet there’s nobody there.
Daniel, all I can say is be careful…when I got my first ticket in Chicago, I was all signed up for traffic school and then I got another ticket! It was almost unbearable to sit through the first session, knowing I had to do it all over again.
But both my sessions were in the city…why in the hell would they send you to Wisconsin? Would it even count toward an Illinois ticket? It does sound fishy.
I went to traffic school in that well-known Chicago suburb, Peoria. We only had one car and two little kids so my wife and kids would drop me off and pick me up.
Unfortunately the school was located right behind a local adult bookstore. So every time we drove past after that my kids would say, “Hey! There’s daddy’s school!”.
“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
– William of Ockham
The last time I had to do traffic school, I did it on the internet. There are a bunch of them out there (I used www.trafficschool.com, which I think is for California only). If I were you, I’d do a web search on internet traffic school AND illinois. If you find one, the school can let you know if their course is accepted by your traffic court. It’ll be worth the search – on-line traffic school was UNBELIEVABLY easy!