Virginia Reckless Driving Defense
If you’re charged with Virginia reckless driving, you need to call an attorney. You’re facing a misdemeanor conviction that could possibly cost your driver’s license or jail time. Fortunately, the reckless driving charge might be dismissed or reduced depending upon the facts of your case and your driving record.
Transcription
Hello, my name is Andrew Flusche. I’m a Virginia traffic attorney. If you’ve been charged with reckless driving for speed or reckless driving general, you need to learn about what you’re facing.
That’s a serious charge in Virginia; it’s a class one misdemeanor, which is actually the same level of offense as DUI or DWI. You need to learn about what defenses you have and what possibilities might be on the table for you when you get to court. In a lot of reckless driving cases in Virginia, it’s possible for us to make some headway and get the case reduced or even dismissed depending on the situation that you’re in.
The first thing we do for any reckless driving case if you call me is, we’ll talk about it, we’ll find out the details of your case, where it’s pending, what speed you’re accused of. Or if it’s an accident or a general type reckless driving case, we’ll find out the details of what happened. Then we’ll get your driving record, if you hire me, so we can see what’s on the record and we can see where the case is going to fall as far as your prior record and what you might qualify for in the judge’s eyes.
Then I would get to court early and find out from the officer what he says happened and we’ll find out if he has the evidence to prove the case against you. The officer in speed cases has to be able to essentially prove that he clocked your vehicle, that his equipment was calibrated and accurate, and that his equipment read whatever speed he is alleging at the time. If he can prove that, then that’s the basic case against you. Now, there are a lot of other pieces that he’s got to be able to say in court – for example, that he was wearing his badge and uniform, and a few things like that – but that’s the meat of the case as far as the radar or laser speed determination. Then what we try to do is really negotiate the case with the trooper or the deputy, and with the judge.
In many cases, depending on your record – if you have a good record, not having done driving school before or at least having done it recently – there are a lot of options that we can try to get for you in court. A lot of the judges, if you have a good record, would consider dismissing lower speed cases with you doing driving school, or at least reducing cases a lot of times with you doing driving school and perhaps some community service. So there are a lot of options, even if you’re charged with a higher speed case. I know some attorneys will tell you that if you’re charged with over 90 mph you’re looking at jail time. But those attorneys don’t practice around Fredericksburg primarily, because in the Fredericksburg area (Stafford, Spotsylvania, and King George) just because you’re going a little over 90 mph does not mean you’re looking at jail time. If you’re going over 100 mph, jail time is a concerns for us of course, but over 90mph does not mean all is lost. There are still sometimes a lot of things we can do for you.
So give me a call. We’ll find out about the nature of the case, about your prior record, and I’ll let you know what we can do for you to help.
