There might be some bad news if you get Speeding Ticket in Virginia. If you get one Speeding Ticket, Virginia is the 4th worst state in the nation when it comes to the possibility you will get a second speeding citation.
The insurance quote comparison website Insurify analyzed data collected from 1.6 million people who provided answers to questions concerning vehicle type, driver history, and other personal information needed to provide insurance estimates. Insurify’s data science team identified drivers with two or more violations of the same incident-type, indexed them by state of residence, and ranked the states.
They then repeated this process for incident-specific rankings including speeding, DUI, and Driving on a Suspended License.
Over 16 percent of the Virginia drivers who responded had received one speeding ticket. According to their data, Insurify was able to determine that one out of every three of the Virginia drivers who were convicted of one ticket in traffic court, were likely convicted of a second or third ticket at a later time in another Virginia court.
Attorney Alex Gordon, a lawyer in northern Virginia, has helped more than 2500 people charged with speeding tickets and Reckless Driving is not surprised by the data. Gordon believes that the Virginia traffic laws are some of the most draconian in the nation. “A person can be charged with a misdemeanor for exceeding the speed limit by only 20 mph.”, attorney Gordon explained, “which makes it difficult to get a ticket dismissed completely from a person’s record as the prosecutor is likely to want a conviction for a speeding ticket in order to for the misdemeanor charge to be reduced.”
Gordon also believes that “The reason the Commonwealth attorney has the ability to require some kind of a conviction for a traffic infraction is that the alternative is a potentially permanent misdemeanor conviction for Reckless Driving, which will stay on a driving record for 11 years, and have the possibility of a 6 month license suspension, and a fine of up to $2500.00.”
A standard speeding ticket in Virginia under Virginia Code Section 46.2-870 can be punished by a fine of $250.00 or less plus court costs with no court ordered suspension.
Mr. Gordon and his colleague Carlos Wall, are Virginia attorneys who practice criminal and traffic law in Prince William, Fairfax, Arlington, and Loudoun counties. They can be reached at 703.218.8416 if you have any questions about traffic or criminal violations in Virginia or at www.NoVaAttorneys.com. They offer free consultations.
The other states with the Highest Percentage of Drivers with more than one Speeding Ticket according to the data collected by Insurify:
5. Ohio
4. Virginia
3. North Dakota
2. South Carolina
1. Iowa