Insurance companies' rating systems vary so while your carrier may find failure to control the vehicle as more serious other auto insurance providers may find the 15 mph speeding offense more serious. They both basically have to do with speeding though so may be counted as the same type of offense and thus not making a difference which ticket the teenage driver decides to take a defensive driving for to keep off her Texas motor vehicle record (MVR).

Though in this case both tickets were not issued at the same time you can keep in mind for future that sometimes two incidents occurring simultaneously will count as only one on your driving record or according to an insurance company's insurance point system.

For instance the underwriting rules of many Texas carriers say that if two or more violations or accidents occur on the same day, only use one of the violations or accidents for underwriting and rating purposes. The order of hierarchy for determining the most severe chargeable incident to be used is: Major Violations, DWI, At-Fault Accident, Minor Moving Violation and Non-Chargeable Incidents. The violation or accident not charged from the same day occurrence will not be counted toward the calculation of points to determine underwriting eligibility.

So if two similar tickets issued for the same accident like a failure to control vehicle and or a speeding ticket they would usually be lumped in as just an "At-Fault Accident" for insurance purposes.

The teenage driver involved in the accident and then also later received a speeding ticket can check with her insurance provider to find out more about their rating system and if there is a difference in how her rates would be affected by a failure to control ticket versus a speeding ticket. She can also see if the ticket that was issued due to her rear-ending a vehicle will just get lumped with the accident for insurance purposes so that it will just be rated as an at-fault accident.

As you may be aware taking defense driving to deal with a ticket in Texas means you are requesting deferred disposition (also referred to as deferred adjudication) which means you will be placed on probation for a period of up to one year. If you successfully complete the probationary period without receiving a moving violation anywhere in the State of Texas, the original charge will be dismissed. As part of deferred disposition, you are required to take a defensive driving course.

According to what we have read on Texas court sites, defendants under 25 years-old given a traffic citation will be required to take a driving safety course with a deferred disposition provisional driver's license which includes an exam by the Department of Public Safety. Also if the driver holds a provisional driver license (under 18 years of age) they must submit to a DPS road test. Failure by the driver to meet this requirement will result in a final conviction for that traffic offense instead of an adjudication.

As a teen driver she also needs to be aware that Texas law notes that if cited for two or more moving violations within 12 months, a teen is subject to a license suspension of 90 days to one year. So to keep her license from this suspension it appears that she needs to decide after speaking to her insurance agent which ticket to request defensive driving school from the judge for and thus keep one of the violations from going on her TX driving record.