Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Virginia Traffic Court and DMV fees

About a month ago I mentioned Virginia's new speeding ticket fees. I saw a more complete breakdown of them and wanted to just give a quick update on that. These are fees imposed by the Virginia DMV, on top of the fines that come from the traffic courts in Virginia.

It starts at $750 for driving with a suspended or revoked license (commonly called AUO in New York). A variety of offenses lead to a $900 fee, though they're all odd things like driving with crappy tires or driving a school bus without the proper license. These are real things but we rarely see them.

The famous one is the $1050 fee (though it may be as low as $900) for reckless driving. In NY reckless driving is its own offense, but there are states, such as Virginia, where certain things are automatically reckless driving. This includes speed more than 20 over the limit, speed over 80 mph, and a few other things.

DWI offenses lead to fees of $2250 or $3000 depending on the circumstances, and there is a "felony reckless driving" that also has a $3000 DMV fee.

All I can say is that you should drive slow in Virginia, and otherwise be careful, and if all that fails, hire a lawyer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

People complain about NY Driver assesments. Think NY will Raise theirs now?

Unknown said...

No, I don't think NY will raise them now, but sometime in the next few years it's possible.

One thing that bothers me about the assessment is that defendants are not warned before they plead guilty about the potential assessment from DMV. Someone will look online and see that the fine range for 21 mph over the limit is $90-300. Then they get fined $120 + $55 surcharge and they think it's done. And then 2 months later they get the assessment notice and call a lawyer. Not too late, but not good.

Anonymous said...

I have to agree that people should be told, but when people plea by mail, it makes it difficult.

I have considered changing my fine notices to include a statement about them.

Problem would be larger courts that handle thousands of tickets.