Quick answer: Maryland has two separate “driving without insurance” charges, and which one is written on your citation decides everything that follows. Md. Code, Transp. § 17-104(b) charges the registered owner with failing to maintain required security — a $290 payable citation carrying zero points, with no proof of knowledge required. Transp. § 17-107(a) charges a driver who “knows or has reason to know” the vehicle is uninsured — must appear, 5 points, and up to 1 year in jail and a $1,000 fine on a first offense. A Glen Burnie stop is heard in the District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County at Glen Burnie.
I’m David Waranch, and I’ve handled thousands of Maryland traffic cases, including uninsured-driving charges on both Anne Arundel dockets.
“It’s only $290, I’ll just mail it in” is the most expensive sentence on this page. Paying a preset Maryland fine is a guilty plea, and the Judiciary says so plainly: a guilty plea results in the charge becoming part of your record. The moment your check clears you have a conviction for failing to maintain required security, and probation before judgment under Crim. Proc. § 6-220 — the disposition that avoids a conviction entirely — is gone. Requesting a waiver hearing or a trial keeps it open. That is a trade, not a free option: at either hearing the judge can also raise the fine, up to a maximum of $500. Make the trade deliberately.
Read the Section Number Before You Read Anything Else
Officers in Anne Arundel County write both charges, sometimes on the same stop, and clients describe them as if they were the same thing. They are not. One is a paperwork failure with no points; the other is a jailable misdemeanor with a mental state the State has to prove.
Section 17-104(b) is strict: the owner of a vehicle registered in Maryland “shall maintain the required security for the vehicle during the registration period.” Whether you knew the policy had lapsed is legally irrelevant to guilt. Section 17-107 is the opposite — knowledge is the entire offense.
| Charge | Who it targets | Knowledge required? | Preset fine | Points | Maximum on conviction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| § 17-104(b) — owner failure to maintain required security | The registered owner | No | $290, payable | 0 | $500 fine (§ 27-101(b)) |
| § 17-107(a)(1) — knowingly driving an uninsured vehicle | The driver | Yes | Must appear — cannot be prepaid | 5 | 1 year and/or $1,000; 2 years on a second offense |
| § 17-107(a)(2) — owner knowingly permitting another to drive it | The owner who lent the car | Yes | Must appear | 5 | 1 year and/or $1,000 |
| § 17-104.2(b) — no evidence of security in the vehicle, or not produced on request | The driver | No | $83, payable | 0 | $50 fine, which the court may waive (§ 17-104.2(d)) |
| § 17-106(d) — failure to surrender registration plates and card within 48 hours | The owner | No | $290, payable | 0 | $500 fine |
The $50-versus-$83 gap on § 17-104.2 is real: the statute sets the fine at $50 and lets the court waive it, while the District Court’s preset schedule (Rev. 10/2025) lists the payable amount as $83. For the payable-versus-must-appear line on its own, see payable vs must-appear tickets in Maryland.
The Five Points Hurt Longer Than the Fine
People fixate on the $1,000 and the jail exposure. Most first-offense § 17-107 cases do not end in jail, and the number that actually reshapes a client’s year is the 5 points. Under Transp. § 16-404(a), points in any two-year window trigger MVA action on a fixed ladder: 3 brings a warning letter, 5 means the MVA shall require you to enroll in a driver improvement program under § 16-212, 8 brings suspension, 12 brings revocation.
One § 17-107 conviction takes a spotless record to the driver improvement threshold in a single step and leaves you three points from a suspension. The § 17-104 owner charge carries zero — which is why the section number matters more than the dollar figure. See Maryland’s point system in a nutshell and how insurance companies treat traffic convictions.
The Presumption Is Where a § 17-107 Case Is Won or Lost
Proving what someone knew is hard, so the legislature gave the State a shortcut. It is rebuttable, and most people charged under § 17-107 have no idea it is the thing they are fighting.
“In any prosecution under subsection (a) of this section for a vehicle that is registered in the State, the introduction of the official records of the Motor Vehicle Administration showing the absence of a record that the vehicle is covered by the security required under § 17-104 of this subtitle shall be prima facie evidence that a person knows or has reason to know that a motor vehicle is not covered by the required security.” — Md. Code, Transp. § 17-107(b)(1)
Read what that does. The State never has to call a witness who heard you say you knew. It prints the MVA record, the record shows no coverage, and the burden of production shifts to you. But subsection (b)(2) says introducing those records “may not limit the introduction of other evidence bearing upon whether the vehicle was covered.” The presumption is a starting point for the judge, not a verdict.
What rebuts it is documentary and specific: a cancellation notice mailed to an address you had moved from, a bank record showing the autopay the carrier declined without telling you, a policy in force on the stop date but reported late to the MVA, a spouse’s policy that covered the car, a binder issued hours before the stop. Records lag, and that scenario has its own page at charged with driving uninsured when you had insurance. If you were driving someone else’s car, the (a)(1) question is what you had reason to know about their policy — often very little.
Which Anne Arundel Courthouse Hears It
The District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County sits in two places, Annapolis and Glen Burnie, and venue follows where the officer stopped you rather than where you live. Northern-county stops feed the Glen Burnie docket: Ritchie Highway, MD 648, MD 10, MD 100, the I-97 corridor south from the Baltimore Beltway, and the roads around BWI Marshall.
The location is printed on your citation and on any summons the court mails. Read it. Standing in the Annapolis hallway while your name is called twenty miles north is a failure to appear, and on a must-appear § 17-107 charge that can produce a bench warrant out of Glen Burnie plus an MVA suspension. For the county docket as a whole, see Anne Arundel County uninsured driving defense and Anne Arundel traffic defense.
What Actually Happens on Your Court Date
A no-insurance case is a bench trial on a crowded traffic docket, usually a morning, no jury. The State’s case is short: the officer testifies to the stop, and the MVA certification comes in under § 17-107(b)(1). Ten minutes, sometimes less.
Which is why the case is decided before the date. The single most useful thing a client can do is walk in insured — a current declarations page, the reinstatement paid, the lapse closed. Judges here are markedly more receptive to a non-conviction disposition for a driver who has already fixed the problem than for one promising to. Bring proof of what your coverage looked like on the stop date, not just today.
The realistic outcomes are a not-guilty verdict where the presumption is rebutted, a dismissal or a plea to the zero-point § 17-104 or § 17-104.2 charge instead of § 17-107, a probation before judgment under § 6-220 that leaves no conviction and no points, or a conviction with a fine. Nobody can promise which. What you control is which of them is still available when you walk in — and prepaying removes most of them. See why paying a Maryland traffic ticket is usually a mistake and what a PBJ actually is. Even on a must-appear charge a lawyer can often appear for you.
The MVA Case Runs Separately — and It Is Not This Page
Winning in Glen Burnie does not close your file. Under § 17-106 a lapse suspends the registration automatically as of the date it happened, the MVA charges an uninsured motorist penalty fee of $200 per vehicle for the first 1 to 30 days and $7 for every additional day, capped at $3,500 per violation in a 12-month period, and the plates must be surrendered within 48 hours of the suspension notice.
That administrative side is owned by other pages: the Silver Spring uninsured driving page, insurance lapse and license suspension in Maryland, and the statewide hub, driving without insurance in Maryland. This page is the criminal case; if your problem is the MVA money and the plates, start there. If the stop also produced a driving while suspended charge, that one is usually the more dangerous of the two.
Common Questions
Usually not. A $290 preset means you were charged under Transp. 17-104(b) as the owner who failed to maintain required security, and paying a preset Maryland fine is a guilty plea. The Maryland Judiciary states that a guilty plea results in the charge becoming part of your record, so payment creates a conviction and forecloses probation before judgment under Crim. Proc. 6-220, which would have left you with no conviction at all. Your alternatives within 30 days are a payment plan, a waiver hearing to plead guilty with an explanation, or a trial. Both hearings are a trade rather than a free option, because the judge can also increase the fine up to a maximum of $500.
It is a defense to Transp. 17-107 and it is not a defense to Transp. 17-104. Section 17-107 punishes a person who knows or has reason to know the vehicle is uninsured, so the State must establish that mental state. Section 17-104 simply requires the owner to maintain security during the registration period and contains no knowledge element at all. The catch on 17-107 is subsection (b)(1), which makes MVA records showing no coverage prima facie evidence that you knew or had reason to know. That presumption is rebuttable, and subsection (b)(2) preserves your right to put in other evidence, such as a cancellation notice sent to an old address, a declined automatic payment, or a policy that was in force but reported late.
It depends on which section you were charged under. A 17-104 owner citation is payable, so you can resolve it without a trial, although paying it convicts you. A 17-107 charge is marked must appear on the District Court preset schedule and cannot be prepaid at any price, because it carries up to a year in jail and five points on a first offense. The case is heard in the District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County, and northern county stops go on the Glen Burnie docket rather than Annapolis. On many traffic matters a lawyer can enter an appearance and handle the date for you, so ask before you take a day off work.
Law Offices of David R. Waranch — 301-563-9575 · toll-free 1-877-566-2408. Hablamos Español.
Last updated: August 2026. Statutory references: Md. Code, Transp. §§ 16-212, 16-404, 17-104, 17-104.2, 17-106, 17-107, 27-101; Md. Code, Crim. Proc. § 6-220. Preset fine amounts and point values from the District Court of Maryland preset fine schedule DC-CR-090 (Rev. 10/2025). This page is general information about Maryland law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.