Completing a state-certified Texas online traffic school is becoming the most popular way to complete ticket dismissal requirements these days. Instead of government-run programs, the state of Texas has allowed private organizations to develop online defensive driving courses as an alternative to classroom-based courses. Unless you love being around a bunch of annoyed strangers in some hot classroom on a Saturday while getting lectured about driving safety, then online traffic school is the best invention since the radar detector. It’s nothing anyone wants to do by choice, but if you have to take a defensive driving course, doing it online is a no-brainer. Most states still require that you attend a physical classroom, so consider yourself fortunate!
Our Top 5 Rated Online Traffic Schools For Texas
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Review #1: iDriveSafely.com
iDriveSafely.com has consistently won the best online traffic school of the year award, including in 2019 and 2020. After 15 years in the business, iDriveSafely has become the #1 provider in the US. They’ve served over 5 million students with their innovative and convenient online curriculum. You can rest assured that it’s the shortest course allowed by Texas state. iDriveSafely offers three learning formats to suit every student: text-based, audio, and video streaming. All options were designed to be short and simple. It’s hard to find a course that is more convenient than this one!
(Choose your state to see special pricing)
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Review #2: MyImprov.com
This course really took us by surprise and has quickly become one of our favorites! There are quite a few online traffic schools that claim to be fun and include comedy. We’ve found them all to be very low quality. This course has set the standard for comedy traffic school courses. MyImprov.com has proven to perfect the art of Edutainment. That’s the combination of education and entertainment for effective learning and retention! Everyone knows the hardest part of taking an online traffic school is the boredom factor. Well, this traffic school easily won multiple awards from reputable institutions and media outlets for its unique and interesting approach to defensive driving. So if you want a course that isn’t boring, this is your best option.
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Review #3: DriversEd.com
As you can probably tell by their name, this site is mostly used as a drivers ed course. However, they also offer online traffic schools in the states of Arizona, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Texas. As a drivers ed course, they are the most popular course available. They’ve trained a total of 6 million drivers to date! Their traffic school program isn’t quite as popular, but it is still one of the highest quality courses you will find. They updated their graphics and animations to give it a more 3D and modern look which really helped to spruce up the program a bit. They also recently released their new mobile app for Apple and Android devices. The app will allow students to seamlessly switch between their mobile phone and laptop. It’s also easy to download all your reference materials for easy access. Another feature we love about the app is that you can contact a customer support agent for free, 7 days a week. They’ve been around since the beginning of online traffic schools and are an excellent choice.
(You can also use discount code mydriversedYZX during sign up for 5% off)
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Review #4: Traffic101.com
Normally, this school wouldn’t be rated all that high, but we decided to include them in this list because of their superior customer service. We’ve received numerous reports from people claiming to have received “above and beyond” service from these guys. It’s a 100% text-based course, which most people find to be very boring, but it’s also the simplest court-ordered online course available. It’s sort of like reading an ebook with little quizzes mixed in. No videos, no fancy animations, just the facts you need to complete your traffic school requirements.
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Finding A Legit Online Traffic School In Texas
Unfortunately, the state of Texas does not have an easily accessible complete list of state-approved online traffic schools, so unless the court gave you a list, you already have a problem. How do you know what schools have been approved by the state and which ones haven’t? While we’ve compiled a list of Texas TEA-approved online defensive driving courses, but make sure to double-check with the Texas official website if there is a more recent and updated list. You wouldn’t want to enroll in a course that wasn’t TDLR-approved after all!
You might be wondering right about now, “doesn’t this open the door for scams?” Yes, it does! You may have seen it in the news, and the Better Business Bureau is concerned about it as well. While outright fraudulent scams do exist, there are other more subtle problems that are more common. Here are a few things to watch out for, even among the Texas Education Agency (TEA) approved online traffic schools.
Don’t Fall For The “State Approved” Scam
There are literally hundreds of online traffic schools in existence today, and that only covers the legitimate companies! Many of these schools have not been approved for the state of Texas. They may be approved for states like California or Florida, but unless the school has received official certification from the Texas Education Agency 3, they are not approved in Texas. Imagine going through a 6 hour online defensive driving course that’s not even approved for ticket dismissal in Texas! Ouch! So just because an online traffic school says “state-approved” on their website, make sure they are talking about Texas! A school will most likely have a “TLDR-approved” badge on the course information page. And finally, don’t sign up for an online driver’s education course on accident. Not only are these courses much more expensive, but it can’t be used to dismiss your ticket. A Texas state-approved online driver’s ed course isn’t what you’re looking for. You want an online traffic school or a Texas online defensive driving course. Some of these legitimate online driving schools push their ethical limits by allowing people to sign up and pay for courses that do people no good.
Watch For Resellers Of Online Traffic School Courses
Here’s another problem to watch out for. Quite a few websites were created to look like a legitimate online driving school. They may even claim to be certified by the state and show an image of their Texas TEA certification. Look closely. Does the certificate have its exact website or company name on it? If not, they are likely a 3rd party reseller! This isn’t a scam or anything, but it could cost you money. Basically, a company will set up a great looking website, promote it, and resell another companies course, charging a little extra for their efforts. While you end up completing the requirements and will get the ticket dismissed, you’re also throwing away money just for unknowingly signing up for a reseller that wants to make a commission. Sign up direct and skip the middle man.
Look For Online Defensive Driving Courses With A Solid Company History
Texas online traffic school courses have been around for over a decade now. There’s really no reason to go with a small website that just got started. Go with the proven winners! Not only that, go with the ones that have demonstrated a desire to be the best. The ones that go above and beyond. One sure-fire way to do that is to check a companies Better Business Bureau rating. There’s an important point to make here, though – check the BBB ratings yourself! We recently found an online traffic school approved in Texas that displayed an A+ Better Business Bureau rating on their homepage. Upon further inspection, we discovered that the A+ rating was for their parent company. The actual driving school itself has a D- rating! It isn’t difficult to place a Better Business Bureau rating on a website, so manually check a companies rating using the Better Business Bureau website directly. 4
Find Online Traffic Schools With Free Signup Options & Guarantees
The legitimate traffic schools have found a way to separate themselves from the low-quality or scam sites. They simply allow you to sign up for the course for free and try it out before you buy it. Most of the time, you don’t even have to give them a credit card number. Simply go through the course and they will charge you right before you take the final exam. Sometimes you will be required to offer up payment information halfway through, but by that point, you probably wouldn’t switch anyway. If you’ve done your homework and chose a defensive driving course that cares about their reputation, such as a high Better Business Bureau rating, you won’t have any problems with their money-back guarantees. If you do, you can head straight over to the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint.
Any decent school should guarantee that you pass the final exam. Some of them even allow you to keep taking the final exam over and over again until you pass (although the exams are normally very easy).
Anytime Access
Before signing up, make sure you can access the course at any time. There are still some courses out there that require you to complete the entire thing in one sitting. You can’t log out and log back in later, you can’t pause your progress, and sometimes, you can only complete the course during certain business hours. This is a rare exception, but don’t spend money with a course that operates on specific hours or forces you to complete the entire course in a single sitting. The entire point of taking traffic school online is so you can do it at your own pace when you want!
Watch For Hidden Fees
Most online traffic schools love hidden charges of some kind. This is especially true if you procrastinated and need to use expedited shipping. The overnight shipping charges are outrageous! We’ve seen expedited shipping options go for upwards of $40 or more, just for shipping a single piece of paper! Of course, nearly every course you find will give you the option of free shipping, but the shipping times can be 10 to 14 days or more. We all know they could send them faster for the same price, but the point is, they want to make money on shipping charges as they know people wait to complete these courses. There’s not much you can do about this other than to sign up and complete the course early or ask the court for an extension.
Make 24/7/365 Customer Service A Requirement
One of the main advantages of an online traffic school is so you can do it from anywhere at any time. What good will 9 – 5 customer service be if you are taking the course at 7? All of the higher quality courses offer 24/7/365 customer service and they offer it in multiple ways – phone, email, or online chat. If a company isn’t willing to back up their product with customer support whenever it’s needed, go with another course. There are plenty of online traffic schools that provide 24hr support.
Device Friendly Courses
Remember, a huge number of these online traffic schools were developed when Texas first approved their use in the late 1990s / early 2000s. We’ve come a long way since then! The majority of these courses will not function well on a smartphone or tablet, especially if you’re using an iPhone or iPad. Many courses are entirely flash-based, which the iPhone and iPad do not support. If you want the ability to take the course from your phone or tablet, make sure the course is compatible!
After Completing Your Texas Traffic School Online
Once you’ve taken the final exam (most schools guarantee you’ll pass), you’ll receive a certificate of completion in the mail. In most Texas court districts, you are required to hand-deliver or mail the certificate to the court or clerk’s office yourself. Be sure you call the court and ask how the certificate needs to be delivered. If you are going to mail the certificate, make a copy! Sending additional copies to you probably won’t be free, so make several copies in case it gets lost along the way. Paying for certified delivery probably isn’t a bad idea if you’re sending the original.
There are also a lot of online traffic schools that offer FREE reporting of your certificate of completion to the TDLR once you finish the course, like MyImprov.com
Don’t Forget To Notify Your Auto Insurance Company
Here’s where things get a bit awkward. One of the entire reasons why you want to take an online traffic school in Texas is to keep your auto insurance rates down. Taking a defensive driving course usually keeps the infraction you received off your record. However, the same course you’re taking to remove the ticket from your record can also be used to get a discount on your insurance. In some states, such as New York, insurance companies are actually required by law to give a discount when these courses are completed! So in the end, you might actually save money on your insurance premiums for taking an online traffic school. Wrap your head around that one!
Hopefully, this info helps you find a Texas online traffic school that won’t rip you off, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a few things about safe driving along the way. You’ve got to do it anyway, might as well make the best of it. If you’d like to see specific online traffic school recommendations, be sure to check out the many reviews on the site.
Drive safe!