Interesting that they make you pay for the ticket?! Are you sure that was not court costs? By paying the ticket, there is no legal basis to have you take the ERC or anything else, or to arrest you. The fine is the full punishment for the offense. Now it could very well be that the court costs run about the same as the fine.
This whole DDC and ERC thing is quite the scam. I think it started out with good intentions. The thinking being that if we could get some people "educated", they would be better drivers and thus there would be a reduction in infractions. However, very few people take the DDC class seriously. It is just a beaureaucratic hoop to jump through to keep the ticket off your record and the insurance premiums from going up. Back in the early eighties, it was $10 court costs and $20 for the class. Then somewhere along the line, folks figured out that there was some serious money to be made here!
Folks will pay a lot of money to keep a ticket off their record. So gradually, the court costs have kept rising, now close to the cost of the fine. Also, the costs of the classes has gone up. Now we have a thriving industry! But it seems the original intent has long since vanished.
I recall the last time I took one of the regular DDC classes some years back, NO ONE, not even the instructor, really took it serious. It was just a dog and pony show, sit here the required hours, take a test so easy you could pass without the class, get your paper rubber stamped, and off you go! At least with the ERC class, for now anyway, you are likely to learn something that might actually come in useful.
But!!! I could just be a cynical skpetic
Adios,