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Speeding/Aggressive driving. What to expect.

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plbeatty88

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? I live in Maryland.

I got caught doing 71 in a 40 mph zone in Virginia.

I received 2 tickets, one for speeding and one for aggressive driving.

I'm not looking to get out of a ticket or fine, I knew what I was doing. I'm just looking for what to expect.

I'm 21 and so far my driving record looks like this:

02/27/2008 Accident Damage to another car or property (no injuries)
04/11/2008 Operating vehicle without proper registration plates/stickers
10/26/2008 Accident Damage to another car or property (no injuries)
01/02/2009 Violation Ignore traffic signal or sign

My liability coverage was $1138 for 6-months.

Any help, advice, or info is appreciated.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
 


FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
You need a lawyer, aggressive driving is a misdemeanor. With your history you're not likely to get any breaks in court. You're lucky you didn't pick up a reckless driving charge (or did you), to boot.

You can expect anywhere upwards of $1000 fine for the aggressive and a few hundred for the speeding. Depending on the court, the judges mood, and the exact situation, you might even get like 60 days in jail suspended down to four days or so.

Expect your insurance to go up severely if they don't outright drop you.

Keep it up, you're well on your way to being declared a habitual offender.
Depending on whether there any violations issued in those accidents you may be in danger of suspension.
 
FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
It's "RECKLESS" not wreckless. Yes. Reckless is a class 1 misdemeanor which ups the penalties a bit. I believe it's also six points rather than four.
 
H

hydrocarbon1000

Guest
i will avoid MD for a while

plbeatty88 said:
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? I live in Maryland.

I got caught doing 71 in a 40 mph zone in Virginia.

I received 2 tickets, one for speeding and one for aggressive driving.

I'm not looking to get out of a ticket or fine, I knew what I was doing. I'm just looking for what to expect.

I'm 21 and so far my driving record looks like this:

02/27/2008 Accident Damage to another car or property (no injuries)
04/11/2008 Operating vehicle without proper registration plates/stickers
10/26/2008 Accident Damage to another car or property (no injuries)
01/02/2009 Violation Ignore traffic signal or sign

My liability coverage was $1138 for 6-months.

Any help, advice, or info is appreciated.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
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You are what is known as a "crazy driver" ... I would recommend you trade your car in for a vespa, so your likelihood of killing someone gets lowered.
 
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plbeatty88

Junior Member
It actually wasn't agressive driving, it was reckless.

I know I have a couple of accidents and a couple of moving violations, but the accidents were both at red lights, at low speed and the moving violation was because I pulled out of a shopping center late at night and got over a couple of lanes, with no traffic in sight. The officer who caught me still charged me with failure to obey lane markings. Even the operating the vehicle without proper registration violation, I was two days out and on my way to have the vehicle inspected, I even had the initial inspection receipt with me.

I've actually been a lot better, you two bash me, but fail to realize it's been almost 2 years since I've had any violations.

My MD driving record which I got after the 01-02-2009 moving violation only had the that and the 04-11-2008 moving violation listed with 0 points.

Not to mention this is my first ticket for speeding.

I didn't come here to get bashed, I came for some insight/help.
 
FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
As I said, you need a lawyer. Reckless is a serious charge and and could (depending on the circumstances) result in jail time. I've seen judges in both Fairfax and Loudoun hand out such.

But you really do need to check your attitude. I'm not bashing you, but despite your down playing it, your habitual violations and accidents are NOT typical and do indicate a problem. I missed the fact that you have a MD license, ignore what I said about the points that was all for Virginia.

There's a chance still in some courts that you *might* get it plead down to a lesser moving violation if you complete the driving school. But as I said, if the judge has access to your Maryland record, he might be dissuaded from offering that (and you may be right out if any of those violations were in Virginia).
 
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plbeatty88

Junior Member
Just to let everyone know, the state of Virginia basically uses the Reckless Driving to muscle people into taking the speeding charges.

About 80% of the people that were there all got caught at the exact same speed trap. Everyone had the reckless charges dropped and the speeding charges stuck.
 
C

cyjeff

Senior Member
plbeatty88 said:
Just to let everyone know, the state of Virginia basically uses the Reckless Driving to muscle people into taking the speeding charges.

About 80% of the people that were there all got caught at the exact same speed trap. Everyone had the reckless charges dropped and the speeding charges stuck.
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That is just a reckless statement.

Are you prepared to pay the fines of all those people that believe your outlandish statement?
 
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plbeatty88

Junior Member
cyjeff said:
That is just a reckless statement.

Are you prepared to pay the fines of all those people that believe your outlandish statement?
Click to expand...
Are you kidding me?

The state prosecutors literally pulled 9 people without council, 2 people with council and 1 that didn't speak english (also without council), to the side prior to going into the courtroom and asked everyone to take the speeding and drop the reckless.

You could hear them from the hallway; they didn't even take people into the office.

I hope people who look at this don’t get so stressed out, like I did.

Just know that there is a chance that reckless driving can be dropped, and there is also a chance it may stick.

Must likely, as long as your record isn't too bad, reckless driving can be dropped.

Also, it's important to know you can go to court without an attorney and request one, which will at least get you a continuance, and time to hire an attorney.

The judge literally recited the exact same speech for all defendants, the only thing different was the speeds and the dates were a couple of days apart.

By no means is reckless driving a guarantee to get dropped, but it is a possibility.

Hopefully this post can give hope to some people, instead of telling everybody that they're screwed, and how scared they should be and providing no real insight at all.
 
J

Jayken

Junior Member
plbeatty88 said:
Are you kidding me?

The state prosecutors literally pulled 9 people without council, 2 people with council and 1 that didn't speak english (also without council), to the side prior to going into the courtroom and asked everyone to take the speeding and drop the reckless.

You could hear them from the hallway; they didn't even take people into the office.

I hope people who look at this don’t get so stressed out, like I did.

Just know that there is a chance that reckless driving can be dropped, and there is also a chance it may stick.

Must likely, as long as your record isn't too bad, reckless driving can be dropped.

Also, it's important to know you can go to court without an attorney and request one, which will at least get you a continuance, and time to hire an attorney.

The judge literally recited the exact same speech for all defendants, the only thing different was the speeds and the dates were a couple of days apart.

By no means is reckless driving a guarantee to get dropped, but it is a possibility.

Hopefully this post can give hope to some people, instead of telling everybody that they're screwed, and how scared they should be and providing no real insight at all.
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Thank you for that insight. I realize that this isn't the case for everyone, but it helps to ease my stress. I'm facing my first ever violation and it's a reckless driving one.
 
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proud_parent

Senior Member
plbeatty88 said:
Just to let everyone know, the state of Virginia basically uses the Reckless Driving to muscle people into taking the speeding charges.

About 80% of the people that were there all got caught at the exact same speed trap. Everyone had the reckless charges dropped and the speeding charges stuck.
Click to expand...
Did those 80% admit to wilfully operating at speeds nearly double the posted limit?
 
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plbeatty88

Junior Member
proud_parent said:
Did those 80% admit to wilfully operating at speeds nearly double the posted limit?
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Yes. You really can't deny it. Given the opportunity to have a misdemeanor dropped and take a simple moving violation, I think most people would do the same.

You already got caught, it's no point and trying to fight it, because then you'll end up with both. There's really no way around it.

I talked to 5 different attorneys, the first actually was the only one that was straight up and walked me through it. All of them said there was no chance the speeding violation could get dropped.
 
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plbeatty88

Junior Member
Jayken said:
Thank you for that insight. I realize that this isn't the case for everyone, but it helps to ease my stress. I'm facing my first ever violation and it's a reckless driving one.
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I'm glad to hear that. But keep in mind; I was caught by an officer in a speed trap. If you got caught, because you blew by a cop on the interstate, that’s a different set of circumstances.

In the end, you have nothing to lose by going to court without an attorney. Judges are required to ask standardized questions and give you the right to an attorney, which can basically guarantee you a continuance.
 
FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
I guarantee I've seen plenty of Recklesses that go to court who are NOT allowed to plead down. I've seen plenty that do. I've seen plenty of cases (some have shown up here) where people roll over and take the criminal charge out of convenience.
 
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