Traffic School in Oklahoma: Your Options After a Ticket

First, the honest answer: no statewide traffic school

Some states let any driver elect a course to hide a ticket. Oklahoma is not one of them. At the state level, the only thing a class touches is your point total, through a 2 point deduction for finishing an approved driver improvement or defensive driving program.

Whether a ticket can be dismissed is up to the judge's court. City and county courts each decide what diversion they offer, if any, and a few include a driving class for qualifying tickets. Call the court printed on your ticket well before your date; that is the only reliable way to find out.

If your ticket is in Oklahoma City

Oklahoma City Municipal Court will let you settle a single qualifying traffic case through its driver improvement school, no courtroom visit required. Three conditions apply: your license must be valid (a suspended one rules you out), this must be your only open eligible case, and you cannot have gone through the program in the last three years.

Enrolling means a plea of guilty or no contest, a signature on the enrollment form, and paying two $50 fees, one administrative and one for the driving school, along with court costs, all up front. You can start online through the court's eligibility form or in person at the windows at 701 Couch Drive.

The certificate is what matters at the end. Deliver the original by the date on your paperwork and the case is dismissed. Let the date pass and the court convicts you, sends the conviction to Service Oklahoma, and lets the city prosecutor know.

• Your license must be valid, not suspended
• You can have just one open qualifying case
• Three years must have passed since any earlier use
• Drivers under 18 need a parent, guardian or attorney to sign or attend
• Eligibility questions: (405) 297-3898

If your ticket is in Tulsa, a county court or a small town

Tulsa is a good example of why you have to ask. Its municipal court website explains how to pay, set up a plan, join the morning add-on docket, and appeal within 10 days of a conviction, yet it says nothing about a driving school that dismisses tickets. Court Records at (918) 596-1625 can tell you what your ticket qualifies for.

Troopers, sheriff's deputies and campus police usually send their tickets to the district court of the county. Some district attorneys and judges there agree to deferrals that come with conditions. Because those arrangements are local, check with the clerk, or with a lawyer who handles traffic cases, ahead of your date.

Think of it this way: if a trooper stopped you on the interstate outside Norman, the Oklahoma City program has nothing to do with your case. Your call goes to the district court clerk for that county.

Before your date: deadlines and the cost of paying

Treat the court date as immovable. Skipping it can lead to a warrant for failing to appear, and Tulsa warns that unpaid cases handed to a collection agency may pick up a surcharge as high as 35 percent.

Be careful with the payment button. In Oklahoma City, paying by phone counts as pleading no contest and giving up a trial, so it becomes a conviction on your state record. The city's online payment page carries a similar warning.

If you want to take the course online

The defensive driving list Service Oklahoma publishes is just names, cities and phone numbers. Nothing on it says whether an internet version earns the point credit. Before paying for an online class, get a yes from Service Oklahoma or your court for that exact provider.

Make a copy of the certificate and keep the original safe. Courts tend to insist on the original, and the point deduction only appears once the school notifies the state, so ask the school how it does that and how long it takes.

If you hold a CDL

Commercial drivers play by federal rules. Under 49 CFR 384.226, a conviction cannot be hidden, postponed or diverted for anyone holding a CDL or a commercial learner permit, and it does not matter what they were driving. Oklahoma City's court confirms it sends tickets involving CDL holders or commercial vehicles to Service Oklahoma.

You can still take the state course for its 2 point deduction, provided you have not claimed one in the last 24 months. Just expect the conviction itself to stay where employers and carriers will see it.

If a judge or Service Oklahoma orders a course

Sometimes the class is not your choice. A judge can make one part of a sentence or deferral, and Service Oklahoma's Compliance Division can require a safety class from drivers it summons to a compliance hearing. Completing an ordered course fulfills that order and nothing more; the ticket stays.