Pennsylvania and North Carolina are both members of reciprocal agreements called the Drivers License Compact (DLC) and Non-Resident Violators Compact (NRVC). The DLC requires member states to report back to the licensing state of a motorist that was convicted of a moving violation. The home state of that motorist then may place the out of state moving violation on the person's driving record and assign it points, if their state laws require this.

In your case Pennsylvania does not normally place out of state minor moving violations on a PA driver's record nor do they assess points for out of state convictions. So if you pay the NC speeding ticket, PA will be informed but it should not go on your record there or be assigned points. Thus it is unlikely that your insurance provider will know about the speeding citation for it to affect your rates.

However if you fail to pay the North Carolina speeding ticket you license will likely be suspended in both NC and Pennsylvania. As members of the NRVC the North Carolina courts should inform PennDOT if you fail to pay or fail to appear in court for your speeding citation. The NVRC thus instructs your licensing state to suspend your license until you take care of the moving violation you received out of state.

The NC Division of Motor Vehicles also notes that your driving privilege will be revoked when the DMV receives notification from the court that you have failed to appear in court or to pay fines for a citation. In the case of failure to appear and/or to pay a fine, your driving privileges remain revoked until the DMV receives notice that you have complied with the citation. Complying with the citation does not relieve you of the consequences for the actual offense, if you are convicted.

Normally if you fail to appear in court or pay for an offense you are automatically convicted of it and thus the fine amount is due. To the best of our knowledge the court could also put out an order for your arrest (OFA) per North Carolina General Statute (NCGS) 15A-305. If NC did revoke your right to drive in there and you did drive there you could also be cited for driving with a revoked license which is a serious offense with much harsher penalties then the speeding ticket you received to begin with since it is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Having your license suspended by your home state and revoked by NC due to a failure to pay a ticket is much worse for an insurance company to see on your driving record then just an NC speeding ticket, which in your case would not even be on your PA record. Because of how Pennsylvania deals with out of state citations paying the NC ticket would likely not affect your insurance rates.

If you choose to pay the ticket instead of ignoring it you can stop yourself from going through the grief of having your driver's license suspended and from NC sending you to collections for an unpaid ticket.

If your Pennsylvania insurance rates are somehow affected by this NC speeding citation then shop around for better rates.You can get instant car insurance quotes here with us.