Virginia Speeding and Reckless Driving Ticket Fines
Virginia is attempting to curb the number of speeding tickets some cities and counties are issuing to drivers on the state’s roadways.
The Virginia General Assembly included a provision in the state budget declaring that if the amount of money a jurisdiction collects from speeding ticket and reckless driving fines exceeds 40 percent of its total revenue, the state will appropriate half of the money. Those funds will then be placed into the state’s literary fund which pays for school construction projects and teacher retirement plans.
The provision comes after motorist group AAA Mid-Atlantic reported that the Hopewell Sheriff’s Office was using “heavy-handed enforcement tactics” on a section of Interstate 295 in Hopewell, VA. The group calls the two-mile stretch of road the “Million Dollar Mile.” Approximately 1,000 speeding tickets are issued per month on I-295 in Hopewell.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Hopewell’s revenue from speeding and reckless driving tickets has increased from $160,000 a year when the I-295 project began to about $2 million last year.
Martha Meade with AAA Mid-Atlantic believes that the provision will allow police “to continue upholding the law and continue to collect … the appropriate amount of revenue.”
The Hopewell Sheriff’s Office has responded to the allegations by stating that officers only ticket drivers who speed over 81 miles per hour, which is considered reckless driving in Virginia.
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