Lawyers, quick opinion

[Llava]

Did I just read that it's legal to speed by 20 miles per hour in my state?

28-701.02.  Excessive speeds; classification
A. A person shall not:
2.  Exceed the posted speed limit in a business or residential district by more than twenty miles per hour, or if no speed limit is posted, exceed forty-five miles per hour.

I mean, it sure LOOKS like they just said it's legal to go 20 over the speed limit, but I'm not a lawyer so maybe they still have some wiggle room there of which I'm not aware?

(The other notes say that you will not go over 35 when approaching a school crossing, which is 20 over what they post anyways, and that you won't go over 85 anywhere else in Arizona.)

Shockeye and Schild may be interested to know this as well.

[Triforcer]

Did I just read that it's legal to speed by 20 miles per hour in my state?

28-701.02.  Excessive speeds; classification
A. A person shall not:
2.  Exceed the posted speed limit in a business or residential district by more than twenty miles per hour, or if no speed limit is posted, exceed forty-five miles per hour.

I mean, it sure LOOKS like they just said it's legal to go 20 over the speed limit, but I'm not a lawyer so maybe they still have some wiggle room there of which I'm not aware?

(The other notes say that you will not go over 35 when approaching a school crossing, which is 20 over what they post anyways, and that you won't go over 85 anywhere else in Arizona.)

Shockeye and Schild may be interested to know this as well.

Any lawyer worth his salt is not going to answer you, because after you kill the kid both you and the mother will suddenly realize the lawyer is the most attractive target to sue.

[Trippy]

It's kind of hard to evaluate that without the full context but I would assume that that is a definition for "excessive speeds" and not speeding in general. In other words many motor vehicle codes have different "tiers" of speeding and the penalties for each tier vary. For example from California:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d18/vc42000_5.htm

[Abagadro]

Meh, I am not afraid.

Go read 28-701. Those are the speed limits (which can be altered by 28-702 & -703 by the state or local authority posting a different speed for any area in their discretion.) Essentially under that statute the limits are school (15), resident/business (25) and anywhere else(65) unless there is a sign posted, in which case the limited is the posted speed.  If you violate those, you get a speeding ticket.

What you have posted, 28-701-02, is the REALLY BAD CLASS 3 MISDEMEANOR YOU ARE FUCKED AND MAY GO TO JAIL IF YOU DO THIS TYPE OF RECKLESS DRIVING LIMITS.

[Nazrat]

Trippy has the same guess that I do. 

That is a special violation called "excessive speed" with a different set of penalties from "speeding."  Many times those extra penalties remove the option to take defensive driving or to ask for deferred adjudication.  Occassionally, the fines increase dramatically or there is a special fine for excessive speed. 

Look in your state's code for speeding.  It should be near the section you quoted and will flush out the traffic enforcement scheme in your state.

[Llava]

What you have posted, 28-701-02, is the REALLY BAD CLASS 3 MISDEMEANOR YOU ARE FUCKED AND MAY GO TO JAIL IF YOU DO THIS TYPE OF RECKLESS DRIVING LIMITS.

I see.

I knew I had to be misreading it somehow.  Like I said, I'm not a lawyer, but it certainly rang the common sense bell that the state would just give a free pass to driving 20 over the speed limit.

I mean christ, I speed like everyone does, and I know that the cops have a certain unwritten rule (or, more likely, guideline) about how far over you need to be going before they pull you over for it, but to have it right there and for it to be as crazy as 20 over...yikes.

Thanks for the correction.

[schild]

In my experience, you won't get pulled going 7-10 over. You will get pulled for going 11 over. Especially by rookie cocksuckers competing with seniors. They love giving out bullshit tickets.

Speeding in a schoolzone should be punishable by death.

In Virginia, driving over 80 miles per hour (even in a 65mph zone) is considered reckless. Their regular law is 20mph over is considered reckless.

I rarely drive that much over the speed limit, and when I do, I mean it. I hit 149mph from Charlottesville to Richmond once. I covered that stretch of road _very_ quickly. Of course my car was relatively new and I was racing a cocksucker in a Jag.

[Llava]

Yeah, I usually hover at about 10 over if I'm in a hurry, 5 over if I'm not, or right at the speed limit if it's a place that I know cops camp and wait for people.  It takes a lot of effort to drive 20 over the speed limit in most places, even ignoring traffic.

[CmdrSlack]

I'll also weigh in on the side of that statute basically being the definition of what driving wayyyy too fast means. 

[voodoolily]

I almost consistently drive between 10 and 15 over the speed limit, except for in school zones and on residential streets, where I morph into your granny. People who speed in neighborhoods should have their tires slashed. My cat's been hit by a car, my friend's cat was killed by a car, and I witnessed another cat get hit two summers ago. GOd, that was the worst. The next day I see this girl about my age walking down the street, shaking the treat can and calling the little guy, and I had to give her the news and show her where the cat had been buried (it was the middle of July, so we couldn't just leave it out).

...that reminds me, I bet that skeleton is pretty clean by now.

[HaemishM]

Excessive speed is what they define as reckless driving or reckless endangerment in my state. And they don't ask for your license when they pull you over for it, they start with "STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE."

My first ticket was for doing 95 in a 55. He could have hauled my ass off to jail right there, but I assume he figured by my demeanor of "OH FUCK!" that I wasn't an interstate drug runner or intentionally dangerous, just stupid. He let me off with a $155 ticket. Yay.

I assume the reason most cops won't pull you over for going no more than 5-10 MPH over the limit is because the fine would be so Mickey Mouse it'd be less than the court costs to prosecute.

[Yegolev]

I assume the reason most cops won't pull you over for going no more than 5-10 MPH over the limit is because the fine would be so Mickey Mouse it'd be less than the court costs to prosecute.

You generally won't get pulled over in the metro-Atlanta area (can't speak for the rest of the state, but seems true there as well) unless you are doing at least 15 over, because that is when you gain points on your license.  Less than that, it's about $100.  I always go ten over everywhere, unless I would end up exceeding my personal speed limit, which is directly related to my driving skill.  Since I stopped doing 15 or more, I stopped getting tickets, even when doing ten over while passing a cop with a radar gun on me.  Even better, I confirmed this because the last cop that pulled me over told me directly that they don't pull over anyone doing less than 15 over.

[Viin]

You generally won't get pulled over in the metro-Atlanta area (can't speak for the rest of the state, but seems true there as well) unless you are doing at least 15 over, because that is when you gain points on your license.  Less than that, it's about $100.  I always go ten over everywhere, unless I would end up exceeding my personal speed limit, which is directly related to my driving skill.  Since I stopped doing 15 or more, I stopped getting tickets, even when doing ten over while passing a cop with a radar gun on me.  Even better, I confirmed this because the last cop that pulled me over told me directly that they don't pull over anyone doing less than 15 over.

Yah, that seems to be the case in Denver too, for the most part.

What pisses me off is the cops that sit in the HOV lane (which is seperated from normal traffic by cement barriers in the middle of the highway - no way on or off except at the beginning and the end) and tag you for going 10-15 mph over the speedlimit, even though you are going slower than the traffic on the highway. They *should* be tagging all the losers who take the HOV lane by themselves, but instead they pester us slightly heavy footed legal HOV users. Jerks.

[Polysorbate80]

I usually don't speed at all, and never in known speed traps (someone pleeeeeeease nuke Colfax, Washington off the map)  but when I do, I go 100mph+.  I dunno; sometimes those long stretches of boring interstate in places like northern Oregon just scream for it.

I agree about never speeding in 'kid zones', but I really hate the people who bitch at me for doing the legal limit in them as well.  Some seem to think I should be doing 5-10mph.  Or maybe get out of my car and push it for a few blocks.  Even late at night. 

(Tip: if you carpet rat isn't big enough to watch out for cars, they're not old enough to be out after 10pm)

[Pococurante]

My rule of thumb is 10-15 over, capping around 90-95 if the weather is good and I know my car is up to snuff.  The highways in Texas are pretty forgiving for these rates of speed. Except when it rains at which point the roads are worse than snow layered over ice.

I have no problem speeding 5mph over the limit when passing a cop - never been hassled yet.

... except for in school zones and on residential streets, where I morph into your granny.

Damn straight.  The person throwing the one pound rock at this kind of speeder was probably me.

[Yegolev]

It's a "high-occupancy" lane, not a "go-as-fast-as-I-want" lane.  Still dumb, though, but I bet that concrete barrier has something to do with it.  Sounds more like a drunk lane than a commuter lane.

[Viin]

It's also an "Express Lane" - it's not very express if you have to go 55 while the main highway goes 70. 

[Polysorbate80]

I have no problem speeding 5mph over the limit when passing a cop - never been hassled yet.

Unless they want a reason to pull you over for something else, then anything goes.  For instance, in Idaho it's a ticketable offense to not wear your seatbelt, but the police can't pull you over for failing to wear it.  That forces them to find some other fault with your driving so they can give you the seat belt fine (which is fortunately still a laughable $10).

[Pococurante]

It's a "high-occupancy" lane, not a "go-as-fast-as-I-want" lane.  Still dumb, though, but I bet that concrete barrier has something to do with it.  Sounds more like a drunk lane than a commuter lane.

In Dallas the HOV lane is just a double white line.  Amazingly it is well-respected - most people do not treat it as a personal passing lane.  The fewer concrete dividers means at least one additional cruising lane.  But I have no problem passing on the right when some dumbfuck thinks it's her personal "No Traffic In Front Of Me" lane.

HOV != Less-than-average-flow lane

Driving at or below the pace of a slower lane is passive hostile tripe that qualifies the pussy for a free trip behind the woodshed.