Saturday, November 21, 2009

Traffic Lawyer Directory Statistics

Noticed an interesting set of statistics about our directory of traffic lawyers just now.

The image below shows the number of visits to the various pages within the directory. Click on the image to enlarge it. The stats are for the last October 21 to November 20.

Most interesting numbers:
a. 11,424 total pageviews and 7737 unique pageviews. As a rough guess, it looks like maybe 5000 people a month use the lawyer directory.
b. Nassau County District Court must be very busy. There were 175 unique pageviews for the lawyers page for that court.
c. Same for the Rancho Cucamonga Court - a Superior Court in San Bernardino County, California -- 131 unique pageviews.
d. The dropoff from those two courts is big. The Jersey City Court at 81 unique and Nassau County Traffic Court at 71 unique views. You can see that in the second image.
e. After the top, there's a strong middle class. Lots of courts getting lots of views. Among the top 25 are three courts in the Albany area with over 30 unique views each.



And the next image is specific to courts only. Again, click to enlarge:



Some observations:

1. County pages, in general, get more traffic than court pages.

The lawyer directory does not contain many court pages. The site is set up so that a court page is created only when a lawyer indicates in their profile that they handle that particular court. And yes, there is a reason I set it up that way.

You can see that "241 page titles were viewed" in the stats for courts. That probably means lawyers have indicated those 241 courts in their profiles, and maybe a few more that just didn't get any views.

Similarly, counties only appear in the directory when a lawyer has indicated she handles cases in that county.


2. There's a lot of people looking for lawyers on our site. I'm surprised more lawyers haven't signed up for the directory. With all the web sites out there drilling lawyers for big money to be on their sites, you'd think a free opportunity would be attractive.

You lawyers know which courts are busy in your area. Sign up for the site and list yourself for the busy courts around you. We have one lawyer in all of Pennsylvania, and the state is one of the top states on our site. No one has listed themselves in the Philadelphia area even though two of those court pages get a lot of visits.

Lawyers can register on the traffic lawyers registration page.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Texas speeding and traffic fines and points

Searching the web for something else, we came across the image below. It describes the fine and point schedule for Texas traffic tickets. If you click on it, it should enlarge.

Looks like on the high end, it's almost $500 for a very high speed in a work zone with workers present. On the low end, a low speed is $158.

As for points, most violations appear to be either zero or two points. If you have a low enough speed (like 71 in a 65), that's no points. And they have a surcharge if you get 6 or more points, starting at $100.

Altogether the fine and point system seems both simpler and gentler than here. In NY a high speed (31+ over) has a fine up to $85, plus an assessment of $450 or more.

This is also useful information for Texas drivers who get NY tickets. When we negotiate deals for you, we know what deals will give you points and what won't.



We finished our Texas Traffic Court directory a while ago. Some of the busiest courts we see from our site are:

Houston Municipal Court
Humble Municipal Court
Pasadena Municipal Court
San Antonio Municipal Court

Out-of-state tickets and Massachussetts drivers

Prospective clients frequently ask how their NY ticket will affect them in their home state. Since it's next door, we get this question a lot from Massachusetts drivers. One of the best places to get the answer to this question is your state's DMV. In Massachusetts it is known as the RMV - Registry of Motor Vehicles.

This post is about Massachusetts, but for a more general discussion, see my Do Points Transfer post.

The RMV says that out-of-state tickets will count against you. It's in Chapter 2 of the RMV Drivers Manual (a pdf file). Here are some quotes from that:

Out-of-State Violations
Certain traffic offenses you have committed in other states will be placed on your driving record and treated by the RMV as if they had occurred in Massachusetts.
... [O]ut-of-state violations count toward possible license suspension and automobile insurance surcharges. ...
[T]hese offenses will be treated as if they occurred in [MA] if they are a “like” offense. ... RMV will look at what conduct the other state's law prohibits ....
RMV [will] apply Massachusetts license suspension rules to any [such] out-of-state violations ....


A lot of states follow this approach. One reason to hire our firm is that we look at your state's rules to see what reductions would have the lowest impact in your home state. Then we use that information in negotiating a deal for you. This is important. One of the most common reductions for simple tickets in NY is actually worse than a low speed for drivers in some states, such as NJ and FL.

For those interested in MA, see my post about Massachusetts Traffic Court.