Two Speeding Tickets and a Question About Points
A parent stops you after class. Her 17-year-old son completed your program eight months ago and holds a junior operator license. In the last 10 months he has picked up two speeding convictions: 15 over in a 35 mph zone, and 12 over on a 55 mph state route. She has read on a website that 12 points in 12 months means suspension, and she wants to enroll him in a one-night online defensive driving course that advertises that it removes 3 points. She asks you three things: how many points does he have, will the course erase them, and should he just pay the tickets and move on. She also mentions that he now drives himself to a 10 p.m. shift four nights a week.
1. How do you answer the points question accurately, and where does your role end?
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Correct the premise first, gently. New Hampshire does not run the multi-state point schedule she is describing, where convictions accumulate numerical points and a threshold triggers suspension. New Hampshire records convictions, and consequences attach to the number and type of convictions within a time window, along with other triggers such as a habitual-offender finding. So 'how many points does he have' has no reliable New Hampshire answer, and any number you produced would be invented.
What you do say:
- Pull his driving record from DMV (he or his parent can request it) rather than relying on a website or on memory.
- Direct the specific exposure question to DMV or to a lawyer. You are an instructor, not counsel, and you should say so plainly.
- Do not guess at whether he is close to a suspension, and do not tell them the two tickets are probably nothing.
2. The online course promises to remove points. What is your response, and what should the family verify before paying?
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A product that promises point reduction is built for states that actually use points. In New Hampshire, completing a private online course on your own initiative does not erase a conviction from the record. Driver improvement or attitudinal programs that matter are the ones DMV or a court orders, and even then the effect comes from the order, not from the certificate the vendor mails you.
Before paying, they should confirm in writing:
- Whether the course is on any list DMV or the court recognizes.
- Whether it affects the record at all in this state, and if so, how.
- Whether a pending matter would be better handled by asking the court directly.
Reframe the risk: at 17 with a junior operator license, the exposure that matters is not a points total. It is suspension, insurance cost, and the fact that he is building a driving record that will follow him past 18. Two convictions in 10 months is a pattern, not bad luck.
3. What coaching do you give about the behavior behind the tickets, and what boundaries do you keep?
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Treat it as a skill and habit problem with a specific fix, not a character problem.
Practical coaching:
- Look at the actual routes he drives, especially the 10 p.m. commute, and identify where 55 becomes 40 and where enforcement sits.
- Build speed awareness with a narrated drive: 'what is the limit here, what is my speed, what is the gap.'
- Fix the cause of hurry: leaving earlier, fuel before the shift, a route with fewer signals.
- Write a short parent-teen agreement with consequences that are not a surprise later.
- Offer one supervised session or an additional lesson focused on speed management and night driving, since his exposure is now mostly at night.
Boundaries: do not request or read his record without proper authorization, do not discuss him with siblings or other parents, do not promise that a course or a lesson will make a ticket disappear, and document the conversation in your file. What you can promise is better driving; what happens to the citations is someone else's decision.