The Texas Driver Responsibility Program assesses surcharges to individuals with certain traffic convictions.
Drivers who are convicted of one of the following offenses will pay a yearly surcharge for three years. No points are applied for these offenses since the surcharge is automatic upon conviction:
- Intoxication: 1st offense, Texas or out-of-state conviction for driving, intoxication assault, or manslaughter: $1,000
- Intoxication: 2nd, 3rd, or more offenses, Texas or out-of-state conviction for driving, intoxication assault, or manslaughter: $1,500
- DWI with blood alcohol concentration of 0.16 or greater, Texas or out-of-state conviction: $2,000
- Driving without insurance: $250
- Driving while license invalid: driver license is cancelled, suspended, denied renewal, or revoked: $250
- Driving without a license, no driver license or commercial driver license, expired license, or endorsement violation(s): $100
Surcharges are assigned based on the number of points or convictions on the driver record. Surcharges are applied in addition to other fees and do not replace a suspension, revocation, disqualification, denial, or cancellation resulting from these convictions.
Tiered Speed Limit Fines
Texas speeding ticket fines are set by the municipality in which you received a ticket. Your ticket may show the fine on it, or you may need to contact the court. There is a different scale in each municipality. To give you an idea, here are average fines in a few different cities:
- Houston
- 1-5 miles per hour over speed limit: $165
- 6-9 miles per hour over speed limit: $180
- 10-14 miles per hour over speed limit: $195
- 15-19 miles per hour over speed limit: $240
- 20-29 miles per hour over speed limit: $265
- 30 miles or more per hour over speed limit: $300
- Austin
- 5 miles per hour or less over speed limit: $164
- 6-10 miles per hour or less over speed limit: $194
- 11-15 miles per hour or less over speed limit: $239
- 16-20 miles per hour or less over speed limit: $284
- 21-25 miles per hour or less over speed limit: $301
- 26-30 miles per hour or less over speed limit: $301
- San Antonio
- $166 for the first 10 miles per hour over speed limit and then $5 more for each additional mile per hour over that.
Comedy Defensive Driving can help you dismiss your speeding ticket quickly and save you money on your fine.
Texas Cities – Speeding Statistics
Texas is the state with the fifth highest volume of speeding tickets in the U.S. Here are some other statistics about speeding in Texas:
- The largest “speed traps” tend to be counties on the I-10 and I-20 corridors; many of these counties are highly reliant on revenues from traffic violations.
- Despite a population around 4,000, Sutton County recorded 378 speeding tickets of drivers going over 100 miles per hour in the first 11 months of 2015.
- The greater Houston and Austin areas are also dense areas for speeding tickets; Montgomery, in Houston’s Harris County, saw 2,515 traffic tickets last year despite the fact the population is less than 700 people.
- The largest speed traps in North Texas cities over 10,000 people, particularly around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, are Southlake and Hurst (each of which has 0.5 traffic tickets per capita).