So, I found out the soft way. After 2.5 years, I decided I want to drive a car again, but not an automatic--a stick shift. I've been looking through Kijiji for some Mini Cooper S and BMW cars. I was almost ready to purchase a car when I decided I should check with TD Insurance first.
I called them up and gave my info. They asked if I had a speeding ticket over the past three years. You shouldn't lie about these things, so naturally I told them I had one last fall. It was on a motorcycle trip through the countryside in early morning of a cool fall day. There were so few cars on the road. I was doing 110 km/h on an 80 km/h zone. You can barely noticed how faster you were going over the speed limit--it was a beautiful morning and you just enjoy the road. In any case, I got a speeding ticket. I was pissed but eventually got the demerit points reduced to 0 and paid a small fine.
Little did I know--that speeding ticket on my motorcycle counts as a speeding ticket, period. It doesn't matter whether you had it on a motorcycle or in a car. It's all the same. It doesn't matter that you got 0 demerit point. The fact you had a speeding ticket is all that matters to TD Insurance. I think it's actually ridiculous--we all know every motorcyclist speed at some point.
Well, a speeding ticket could raise an insurance premium by quite a bit. I had to ask the representative to recalculate the premium if I didn't have a speeding ticket. Guess what--it's a $400 difference! $400. No, way too much for me. I was eager to try a stick shift, but I don't want to fork up $400 extra on top of an already expensive insurance.
The moral of the story is, fight your ticket so it doesn't go on your driving record!
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