You were being careless and caused an accident. Suck it up pay your fines and insurance and learn your lesson.

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Careless driving involves negligence on the part of the driver such that they're endangering other people. But you were even a step further, actually hitting another vehicle. That could even be considered reckless driving.

But even at the lower level of careless driving, you could've actually ended up with jail time or hundred of dollars in fines (maybe you did?), so I say, be glad you didn't hurt anyone and just own this thing.

Yes, take a defensive driving course to remove the points. They'll go away on their own in time, if your record stays clean, but I wouldn't chance that--if you don't know what happened in this case, you can't perfectly predict your future driving, either.

As for fighting it in court, I'm having a hard time imagining anyone even thinking about that--considering the entire circumstances. You have no witnesses who would vouch that you didn't hit the other car. The police officer might have statements from you which might interfere with any defense you might try to bring. And, if you lose in court, I'm not sure, but I believe you'd have court costs and possibly a higher fine and maybe that jail time that I talked about.

But if you want to take that route, you can google "NJ traffic attorney" or check locally for someone to consult with. But I'd say it's a clear waste of your time and possibly your money.

I took the defensive driving online course. It was really easy and really dumb, but it wiped out two points. Totally worth it.

This is a wild way to retell the story, like it happened to you. Let me rephrase:

I was speeding and rear ended another car.

No one wants to get into an accident and you’re not a bad person for it. But you need to own it and be more careful. No one just “ends up” in the back of another car.

>There isn’t any proof that I was physically distracted. It was more of a mental distraction than anything. Any advice is greatly appreciated

Here is my advice: pay attention to driving. If you can run into a truck for absolutely no good reason, god help any pedestrians around you..

No proof that you were distracted? The proof that you were distracted is the fact that you hit a truck lmao. Focused drivers don’t hit other drivers. There’s your proof.

In NJ, it’s always deemed the fault of the person who rear ended the other person. That’s you homie, undeniably.

You got into an accident! It’s all good! But don’t try to blame the truck, or the cop who ticketed you, it was all you, it was the first time you’ve done something like that, that’s okay! Very human mistake.

Imagine if someone rear ended you and walked away with nothing-no tickets, no fines, no points, you’d probably be pissed. Just accept that you did this, take the class, and learn from this. you’ll be okay

Yeah you can get the ticket turned into “Unsafe operation of a motor vehicle” which is 395 dollar fine and no points just talk to the prosecutor it’s very common

I feel bad for the pickup truck driver, just minding his own business doing nothing wrong, and now he has a damaged truck and has to go through the hassle of getting it repaired, not to mention the inconvenience of being delayed to wherever he was heading…

> I’ve never had caused any accidents or had any issues prior to this and I’ve had my license since 17 and I’m now 24. I don’t think I was speeding and I wasn’t on my phone. Honestly it all just happened so fast that I don’t really remember much between when I turned left at the light to get on to Rt. 70 and when I hit the truck.

You’re going to have zero luck telling a judge “I’m a safe driver. Sometimes even when I’m driving the speed limit, things happen too fast for me and I rear end people.”

Best case the judge tells to you get lost. If he’s in a punitive mood, he could try to get your license taken away for openly admitting that you’re unable to meet the general requirements for safe driving.

The points are meaningless in terms of your record, unless for some reason your job cares. Don't get another ticket for the next year from when the ticket is settled, and they will go away on their own.

Insurance looks at the actual violations, not the points. A careless ticket is equiavlent to a small speeding ticket in most cases (however every person is viewed differently by insurance).

If you have been with your company for 7 years, have a clean record otherwise, they won't move your insurance much, if at all. The accident on the other hand is another story.

Your insurance MAY offer you some kind of discount for defensive driving, etc.

As for fighting it, well, you were in an accident. Pretty slam dunk case for careless driving. The cop COULD have potentially hit you with something worse, and there really isn't anything else you can plead down to that would look better for insurance.

You could go to court, and maybe the prosecutor is in a good mood, and they will dismiss it if you pay court costs, but thats a stretch, and the cop would have probably said something along those lines if it was a case of "look we just want to document this".

Edit: Ultimately though, the best thing to do is contact your insurance agent (hopefully you have a local one and just didn't go with a faceless online, whoever is cheapest company, and switch every 6 months). They will have a good sense as to how it may affect your rates, what some options are for you to reduce any hit, and may very well be familiar with the town and can give you some ideas of what can be done on that end.

We have this conversation every damn time this is brought up in this sub.

Insurance doesn't look at your DMV points and assign some numeric value to them and adjust your rates as such (when i was a kid, everyone always said 1 point = 100 dollars a year, which just isn't true).

Insurance looks at your abstract, which is your driving history, and combines that with a whole host of other data, and then a computer spits out what your risk is, and you rates get set from there. That number constantly changes.

Some years your insurance, particularly if you are older and have a clean history and are a good customer, won't even pull your abstract for a renewal.

Your insurance company is well aware "unsafe operation" is a speeding ticket or other minor infraction you pleaded down to, or the cop cut you a break on, and will factor it in as such. As you mentioned, the fine for it is considerably higher than just paying the fine you would have otherwise, so all you did was pay a few hundred bucks to avoid a few points that don't matter to most people.

Now yes, if your job cares about DMV points, take the plea. If you have a CDL you probably want to take the plea. If you are bumping up against surcharges or something, yeah, take the plea.

But you can only take the plea twice in 5 years. So for most folks, its generally better to keep that in your back pocket in case you get pinched with a 20+ over or something a bit more costly and impactful to your insurance.

Edit: Moreover, everyone you care about knowing (a cop who runs your license, a judge if you get another ticket, whomever pulls your abstract) knows that you were probably speeding or something else silly, which is how you got that ticket, and may very well be able to see the original charge. So its not going to help you get out of a future ticket because someone will say, "hey, his record is clean, i'll cut him a break". If anything its more likely to get you the next ticket, as they will view it as, "well they already got a break 6 months ago, and here they are speeding\whatever again"

Edit2: also its not necessarily 395 dollars. It varies by town. The law is when taken as a plea, the fine is the fine of the original ticket + an additional fee set by the court (I think up to 250 bucks, and you can bet the town charges the max), and court costs (haven't had a ticket in a very long time, but i believe court costs are like 40 bucks in most places).

So yeah, for a low speeding ticket that was otherwise 100 bucks, it may very well be ~400 bucks, but it could be more depending on what the original fine is for.

yeah there is no shame in trying to beat a ticket, but you don't need the "I didn't do anything wrong" attitude when you smacked into a stopped car.

Accidents happen, most of us will get into at least one in our years of driving. Be grateful it was minor, nobody was hurt and now just treat it as a business transaction and figure out how you are going to reduce the cost to yourself.

Do a defensive driver course that’ll remove 2 points.

Why do you feel it being a "mental distraction" is somehow a legit excuse? Driving is a complicated task which requires 100% concentration at all times.

Please take the defensive driving course, maybe they'll help you realize that "mentally distracted" driving could have killed someone here. Be happy you hit a car and apparently hurt no one. If it was a motorcycle, bicyclist, or pedestrian, what then? Slow down and pay attention.