59% of mailed contests get dismissed.
Most Chicago drivers never contest a ticket — they assume they'll lose. The City's own records say otherwise. Here's every hearing outcome, straight from the data.
of mail-in contests won — 185,170 of 316,144 decided cases, 2023–2025
This is the mail-in path specifically — the one Autopilot uses — for cases actually decided (a ruling of Not Liable or Liable) in 2023–2025. We use the mail rate because that's the service we provide; we use decided cases because a withdrawn or dismissed-on-a-technicality case isn't a win or a loss. Counted across everymethod and every year, the number is lower (~54%) — but that mixes in-person hearings we don't do and a decade of older cases. The honest, conservative number for our service is the mail-in, recent one: 59%. You can reproduce it from the raw file on the data sources page.
By contest method
How you fight the ticket matters. (Decided cases, 2023–2025.)
Win rate by ticket type
Some tickets are far easier to beat than others. (Mail-in, decided, 2023–2025.)
See the raw data
Real hearing outcomes obtained via FOIA. Download the full file →
City of Chicago Department of Administrative Hearings, obtained via FOIA #H118909-110325 (1.2M decisions). Headline = Not Liable ÷ decided cases (Not Liable + Liable), contest method = Mail, issued 2023–2025: 185,170 ÷ 316,144 = 59%. Per-type rates use the same basis. Download the raw file and check it yourself on the data sources page.
Got a Chicago ticket?
Autopilot files the mail-in contest for you automatically — the same path that wins 59% of the time.