Lowest Price Traffic School Review

You’ve gotten an expensive speeding ticket for doing Warp 5 in a school zone in Florida. Between the expensive court fine and the other expenses related to that citation, it makes sense you’re looking to save a little money taking online traffic school courses to get the ticket wiped out. To be clear, most online traffic schools are pretty cheap - don’t be surprised to spend $20 or $30 on one. But some are even cheaper. A lot cheaper. Some of ‘em are less than 10 bucks, but that can be a red flag. Sometimes the cheapest isn’t the best, and sometimes it’s simply a scam.

That’s why we decided to look at a school which advertises itself as the lowest priced traffic school out there, the cleverly named Lowest Price Traffic School. Is it really, and should you spend your money with Lowest Price Traffic School? Read on!

Pros and Cons

How Does Lowest Price Traffic School Work?

Lowest Price Traffic School is pretty simple - sign up, take the course you need, take the test, then show the court you passed. Since it’s online, you can complete the course on your own schedule. Which one you take depends on how much trouble you’re in.

Overview of Courses Offered

The Basic Driver Improvement Course is for your first ticket. It’ll take four hours to get through. That time’s a requirement of Florida law. This is the one most first-time customers will take.

If you got a second ticket within a year of the first one, you’ll need their Court Ordered Driver Improvement Course. That one steps up the time requirement, doubling it to 8 hours. You’ll know you need to take this one because a judge will order you to do so.

And if you’re really a maniac on the road and got your license suspended or were adjudicated as a Habitual Traffic Offender, you might find yourself taking the Advanced Driver Improvement Course. That’s the big one, an entire 12 hours start to finish.

They also offer a class that isn’t related to getting in trouble behind the wheel. That one’s called the Learner’s Permit Course, also known as the Traffic Law and Substance Abuse Education course. It’s a 4 hour course aimed at people going for a learner’s permit in Florida.

How Much Does Lowest Price Traffic School Cost?

The up front advertised price for Lowest Price Traffic School is $5.94 for the 4-hour Basic Driver Improvement Course. But when you go to sign up, you find out you also have to pay $19.95 for a “Florida State Assessment Fee & Processing Fee.” But something’s fishy there, because that fee isn’t charged at some other schools. For instance, if you check out Florida Online Traffic School, they charge $18.95 for the whole course, with no “Florida State Assessment Fee & Processing Fee” at all.

It gets better. There’s a note about that fee in the order summary section when you sign up. It reads:

*"The Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles REQUIRES that we collect a State Assessment Fee for each person completing a BDI or TLSAE course. Assessment Fees are remitted to the Department's Highway Safety Operating Trust Fund which is used to administer the Department's programs and to fund the general operations of the Department." *

And while it’s technically true that Florida wants to collect a fee for people who choose (but are not court-ordered) to take a traffic school, according to Florida law, that fee is only $2.50. This means, of course, that $17.45 of that fee is not, in fact, a “Florida State Assessment Fee.” We figure that’s what the “processing fee” part of that explanation is, and we feel that a processing fee which costs almost 3 times the actual course tuition is a bit excessive.

It should be noted that the mandated $2.50 fee is less than the additional “convenience” fee Lowest Price Traffic School will charge you for using a credit or debit card, which clocks in at $2.99. And while paying by credit card certainly is convenient, so is paying by other methods such as PayPal or Google Pay. Unfortunately, credit card is the only option you have to pay online for Lowest Price Traffic School, so we do not see a way for you to escape this “convenience fee.”

If the site detects your mouse moving toward the “back” button, it’ll pop up a coupon for 10% off, complete with a countdown timer limiting your window to take advantage of the discount. But that works out to a relative pittance compared to the added fees you’ll be paying before you even take a course. Especially since that 10% discount is only applied to the course tuition of $5.94, not the $21.94 in other fees. In other words, you end up saving a whopping 59 cents if you take advantage of the discount, bringing your total down to $28.29. That’s still, we stress, more than other online courses for the same result.

Things get more expensive if you need to take a higher level course. The 8-hour court ordered course will cost $59.95, plus a $9.95 processing fee. And the 12-hour course costs $99, but choosing that pops you to another company’s website, so we strongly suspect Lowest Price Traffic School does not actually teach this one.

Our Recommendations

In a word, no, we don’t recommend Lowest Price Traffic School. We don’t like deceptive business practices, and we don’t like it when companies charge “mandated fees” that turn out to be much more than the actual mandated fee.

We’ve also seen a good deal of commentary from students and other reviewers that suggest the money drain doesn’t stop after you pay for the course up front. There are reports that you will be asked for more money if you want things such as a copy of your course completion certificate. We especially don’t like the contentions that Lowest Price Traffic School fails you for one wrong answer, then wants you to pay to take the test over.

Beyond the business ethics concerns we have with Lowest Price Traffic School, we’ll point out that from the start, you’re into the school for $28.88 (or 59 cents less if you take the offered “10%” discount), which does not, in fact, make it the lowest price traffic school. There are others that are 10 bucks cheaper because they charge more for the actual tuition, but do not add “Florida State Assessment Fee & Processing Fees” or “convenience fees.” As such, recommending Lowest Price Traffic School would be a pretty big stretch for us.

Instead, we’d recommend going with a more mainstream school, such as IDriveSafely, Aceable, or the National Safety Council. Or you could go down the list of approved sites on the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles website.

As with any buyer’s guide type article we write, we strongly recommend you conduct your own research. Check online reviews, check a school’s BBB ratings, and read up on the school itself. Find out what your total cost will be up front - if they won’t give it to you, that’s a red flag that there may well be hidden charges you won’t find out about until you’re already invested.

Read more on the 5 Best Online Traffic Schools in Florida

Read more on Car Talk's tips and recommendations on the Best Online Traffic Schools

Car Talk's Recommendations for Best Online Traffic Schools in the Industry