What speed is considered reckless driving in california!?!

[tonymasone]

What speed is considered to be reckless driving in California??

I think it's 100mph+ but not sure.

[prd318ownr]

dunno but i just recieved my 3rd speeding ticket on sunday..... im in a world of hate for the chp right now. only goin 90 and they got me outta 4 other speeders

[GREX1969]

When I was in California in April I was caught doing 87mph in a 55 zone. Luckily as I was a tourist, it was a hire car and I had my British Driving Licence, he let me off with a warning - result :)
Why is the speed limit only 55 on most roads which are so straight with no other traffic for miles :rolleyes:

[tonymasone]

argh, i got pulled over for 93 in a 65, and i'm not sure if they are going to give me reckless driving or not???

[nick_hegel]

When I was in California in April I was caught doing 87mph in a 55 zone. Luckily as I was a tourist, it was a hire car and I had my British Driving Licence, he let me off with a warning - result :)
Why is the speed limit only 55 on most roads which are so straight with no other traffic for miles :rolleyes: cause our entire road system sucks!!! It's so easy to get a license here that there are a lot of unqualified drivers that should be beaten :_punch:

[jflip2002]

I believe it is up to the officer, but anything over 25 MPH over the speed limit is up for reckless driving. I got pulled over doing 80 in a 55 in my Geo Metro (delivering parts after high school, and yes it was basically floored). And he said I was lucky he wasnt giving me a rekless driving. After the $250 ticket came in the mail, oh how lucky I felt lol.

[1rstbmw!]

I got wreckless driving for doing a 108 in a 55.The trooper got trooper of the year(made the most money and gave out the most tickets).

[cali-ti]

cause our entire road system sucks!!! It's so easy to get a license here that there are a lot of unqualified drivers that should be beaten :_punch:
i agree wholeheartedly! everyone should have to take the equivalent of a BMW driving school. add our poorly maintained roads into the mix too.

[ZeroG]

What speed is considered to be reckless driving in California??

I think it's 100mph+ but not sure.

I don't think there is any specific speed. I think it is anything over 20 MPH of the speed limit.

-Chad

[1rstbmw!]

I belive the speed limit is why it is mostly is not for safty but when we get tickets the government makes money therfore they lower the speed limit below what it could be. :x

[jflip2002]

Very true! I come home on the same back road, in no big hurry, listening to sports talk. I usually cruise 65-70, not driving like a maniac. Yet, if a cop was to see me, od get a ticket, even though I'm not harming anyone. It basically is a grab for more money...... That's when you ask them the question, "isn't my tax dollars paying your salary enough?" lol, see how they like that one

[MEDIA PUSHER"]

Pretty sure they can dick you for 20+ over. Our traffic court system is a joke, all they care about is getting your money. I had my license suspended (wrongfully) when i was nowhere near a car. They'll charge you with anything to get you into that courtroom, innocent or not, your going to pay.

[GREX1969]

Here in the UK its getting even worse. We have fixed speed camera and mobile speed units (on almost every road it seems). Hardly any coppers around to book you it's all done via automated systems and you get a nice fixed penalty in the post.
It's all based on how far over the speed limit you are. In some cases it can be as little as 4mph over in a 30zone and you get £60 fine and 3 points. Collect 12 points and they take away your licence (for a short period). The worst bit is these points stay on your licence for 3 years and the insurance love to charge higher premiums.
However whilst in San Francisco I did notice a couple of traffic light cameras - with fines of 500 dollars or something - that's expensive!

[aceyx]

any time i've gotten a ticket, i've deserved it.

if i've just been speeding, in most cases admitting to it has gotten me off with warnings.


tony; reckless driving in california (and most states) is a criminal charge. look at your ticket, if you see "23103/A/VC" written on it you have been charged with reckless driving.

were you not listening when the officer gave you the ticket? s/he's supposed to explain it all to you, and you sign that it was given to you in person.

[tonymasone]

ya im not complaining, anytime a cop pulls me over for speeding, more than likely i'm going to be guilty, ill have to look, thanks for the info

[John Firestone]

Here in the UK its getting even worse.... It's all based on how far over the speed limit you are. In some cases it can be as little as 4mph over in a 30zone and you get £60 fine and 3 points. Collect 12 points and they take away your licence (for a short period). The worst bit is these points stay on your licence for 3 years and the insurance love to charge higher premiums.You have my sympathy.

Things are perhaps a bit more reasonable in Germany. Here, you get your first point when you are 20 km/h (12 mph) over the limit which may explain why you find some driving at roughly the limit + 19. :biggrin: Speeding tickets also have no effect on your insurance because getting them has been shown to have no statistical correlation with what the insurance companies really care about: chargeable accidents.

On the other hand, you are held accountable for anything you did that contributed to an accident and anything you didn't do to avoid one -- which can raise you rates for up to 18 years. I guess it cuts both ways.

[pdxmotorhead]

Reckless is usually at the "professional opinion" of the patrol officer.

Same with a VBR ticket. "Violation of basic rule" means he didn't like what you
were doing, no fighting it in court and they don't need radar. IE too fast for conditions.

Dave.

[tonymasone]

ya, back when i lived in pa (lots of different weather conditions) i had a friend that got pulled over doing the speed limit in snow, "unsafe conditions"

[AlaskaBlue]

I just got done with a BMW high performance driving school and the topic of speed limits being low came up.

Many modern cars a capable of driving much much faster than the posted limits and do it safely.

The drivers, however, are not up to par.

I am sure you have noticed it. People talking on the cell phone, eating, I have even seen reading. Others are sitting so low there is no way they can see, others are leaned over with one hand on the wheel.

The other thing is driver's licenses are much easier to get here. Drivers ed., hold learners permit for a while, and then go take a test a 5 year old could pass if they would reach the pedals.

I would love to see unrestricted roads and much higher speed limits, but it is never going to happen again in the US.

[myblueTI]

man do any of you guys (and girls) have radars? i have had my car for about a year now and never been pulled over. It seams that a teenage kid like me driving a bmw would be targeted to get pulled over. But it hasnt happened yet. So I went out and got a radar so i would know when i am going to get screwed. oh reckless is 25mph over here in mn

[robcarync]

dont have a radar...never been pulled....

suprisingly...i drive too fast...my girlfriend always yells at me when i speed....but she never yells at her other girlfriends when they are speeding and passing cars all over the place on the highway....BLAH!

[John Firestone]

Reckless is usually at the "professional opinion" of the patrol officer.

Same with a VBR ticket. "Violation of basic rule" means he didn't like what you were doing, no fighting it in court and they don't need radar. IE too fast for conditions.I see two problems with this. First, human eyewitness testimony has been repeatedly shown to be unreliable: what you believe you have witnessed being a mixture of what actually happened and what has happened to you before. Over here, it must be confirmed by physical evidence or measurement otherwise it can not to be trusted beyond a shadow of a doubt. Second, having absolute power corrupts.

[pdxmotorhead]

Here a Police officer is considered to be an "expert" eye-witness.

I know a couple of police friends of mine can call your speed +-
about 1 MPH standing near the road. Because they both have
about a million hours clocking cars with radar guns.

In the US traffic enforcement is a revenue generator, it keeps people from just blasting down the road at whatever speed they want and makes
money for the gov that owns the police unit. (City,State,County etc.)

We also have many situations where there is no apeal in court.
IE: Speed or traffic offence in a construction area.
or Speed in a school zone...

Oh well it is what it is...

Dave

[John Firestone]

Here a Police officer is considered to be an "expert" eye-wi\ tness.

I know a couple of police friends of mine can call your speed +- about 1 MPH standing near the road. Because they both have about a million hours clocking cars with radar guns....That could be, but no matter how much experience or training someone has (or how little), a human observer's judgement is just too unreliable and should be checked against objective evidence. I saw a German TV show that tested this by staging a simple collision involving three cars (two of which collided), first in front of a small group of plain folk and then in front of some well-trained police officers. No one got the facts right and some of the mistakes made by the expert eyewitnesses would have been serious had they been accepted in a court of law.

What someone witnesses is partly seen and partly recollected. If you can tell exactly what was reality and what was previous experience you are probably not from this planet!

[maherbaz]

While we are on the topic of speed limits, here's why they were originally set so low in the U.S., and maybe why they have remained. The speed limit has always been left up to the individual states, but in response to oil shortages in 1970's, congress passed law that refused to give highway funding to any state that did not adopt a 55 speed limit. After that, research was done comparing the years of no limit to the years with limits to show that this speed limit prevented many deaths. In 1980's, this limit was raised to 65, but when in 1995 this law was abandoned, many states kept the speed limit (while over half have raised certain limits to 70 or over).

[cali-ti]

In the US traffic enforcement is a revenue generator, it keeps people from just blasting down the road at whatever speed they want and makes money for the gov that owns the police unit. (City,State,County etc.)
and the fact that they've built this "revenue" into the budget is a big problem. so ... if everyone suddenly observed and followed all the laws your revenue stream would disappear? i think that's whack. this gives them incentive to hand out tickets. it would be nice to think that they actually did it for SAFETY instead of income.

[robcarync]

yeah, i learned about some of this in ap government and politics...speed limits are state powers, but the federal government gave out grants to states that decided to use the speed limit...now they arent required to have the limit, but they still have financial incentives to keep it...

our school resource officer was talking to my honors law and justice class...and the topic came up about speeding (the kid with the yellow m3 that drives fast brought it up). i learned two things...one is that my city has money, and has thus developed a radar/laser gun that does not alert radar detectors... i dont know if this is in fact true, but i beleive it, as my city is rather wealthy, and everyne i know that has a radar detector has gotten tickets before...

and two is that in order to patrol traffic and clock cars, you have to be trained. you have to take classes, and you have to pass a test of estimating speeds within +- 2 mph. you literally go out with a nother cop...pick a car...yuo guess the speed, and the other cop clocks it to see how close you were. in order to pass, you have to estimate a cars speed within 2mph of the actual speed 50 times in a row. kind of ridiculous if yu ask me...but i guess it is an expert opinion.

of course this is for my city, i doubt all cops have to be trained like this to patrol traffic

officer smith (my school resource officer) is the man...i know him better than some of my teachers, so i doubt he was lying about this stuff.

[tonymasone]

I still haven't gotten a for sure answer but I read that the speed limit for wreckless driving in California is 100+.

[maherbaz]

tony, this is kind of a long thread to never get your answer. I can tell you that in Illinois reckless is 30 over the posted limit.

[tonymasone]

lol i know, i sparked a lot of conversation tho, i guess everyone hates the fact that they can't speed, i think we all wish we had an autobahn so our cars could be at home, lol

[aceyx]

you haven't gotten a "for sure" answer, because there's no statutory requirement of "x miles over posted speed limit."

essentially, it doesn't exist: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc23103.htm
a cop may have his/her own cutoff point, but will have noted this by the violation on your ticket.


rob; they may be using a european band (L, Ku), but if that's the case i'm pretty sure they're violating FCC regs. my guess is that it's just instant-on.

[tonymasone]

thanks for the info i had a bad feeling it was up to the cop