Why a Texas-approved defensive driving course?

If you’re looking into defensive driving courses, and you live in Texas, you may be wondering why so many courses advertise that they are Texas-approved, and why that matters. The Online defensive driving course helps the learner to drive safely without violating the traffic rules.

The point of defensive driving

First, you need to remember why you are taking a defensive driving course in the first place. The two most common reasons for taking a defensive driving are to have a traffic ticket dismissed or to get a discount on car insurance.

Most traffic violations in Texas can be dismissed upon completion of a defensive driving course, so this is by far the more common of the two.

If you were speeding at 25 miles per hour or more above the speed limit, you can’t dismiss that ticket with defensive driving. The same is true if you were leaving the scene of a collision, driving in a construction zone, passing a school bus, don’t have insurance, or have a commercial drivers license.

If your violation doesn’t fit any of those descriptions, you can likely have your ticket dismissed upon completing a defensive driving course. Some courts will still require you to pay a processing fee, though, so be sure you know what the deal is before you commit to anything. All the information about what you’ll be required to pay and what will be waived should be provided to you by the court.

In addition to dismissing a ticket, taking a defensive driving course can lower your car insurance premium by as much as 10%. In Texas, insurance companies will let you do this every three years. So, every three years you can get a discount on your car insurance just by taking a defensive driving course in Texas.

Insurance companies like to see their customers taking advantage of defensive driving courses. These courses provide lots of great information on safe driving and accident prevention that will make you a better driver. It’s in the best interest of the insurance company to have good drivers for customers.

If their customers are good drivers, they’ll have to spend less money on repairs after car accidents, which means more profits for them, even if they’re giving you a discount.

Does a defensive driving course need to be Texas-approved?

If you live and drive in Texas, then yes, your defensive driving course must be approved by the Texas Department of Licensing and Registration or the Texas Education Agency, or it won’t do anything for you.

Remember, you’re either taking this course to have a traffic ticket dismissed or get a discount on your car insurance. Neither of those benefits would make any sense of the driving safety course wasn’t based on the traffic laws of the state you live in.

While most traffic laws are the same or very similar nation-wide, it’s up to the states to enforce those laws and there are some differences from state to state. If you get a traffic ticket in Texas, that means you violated a state traffic law. If you have violated a state traffic law, it only makes sense that that course you take that re-educates you on the state traffic laws be approved by the state.

For insurance purposes, the argument is similar. The whole point of taking a defensive driving is to learn the laws better, and become less accident-prone as a driver. Both of these are heavily dependent on state traffic laws. Furthermore, the discount on car insurance is regulated by the state, not insurance companies, so again it wouldn’t make sense for the state to allow you to have a discount on car insurance if the program that grants the discount isn’t approved by the state.

Get Defensive offers online defensive driving courses that are Texas-approved. Contact them today to schedule your course!