Never Speed In Virginia: Lessons From My Three Days In Jail

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You never really get a good night's sleep in jail. In the middle of my second night inside, I woke up on the uncomfortable plastic mat in my cell, my neck and back aching. I looked down at my orange jail scrubs and up at the buzzing fluorescent light and thought, "I am here because I drove too fast in a Camaro ZL1."

At that moment, the whole thing seemed pretty funny. As funny as it could have been considering I was in jail for three days, at least.

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I knew I would be in trouble a month earlier, when I blasted the ZL1 down a rural straightaway in Virginia and then saw the state trooper's blue-and-silver Ford Taurus peeking out from the side of the road. I slowed down when I saw him, but his lights came on right away.

The trooper pulled me over and said he had me on radar doing 93 mph in a 55 mph zone. I figured it would be a nasty ticket. It wasn't, because I got nailed in Virginia, a state where the police and the courts take speeding more seriously than possibly anywhere else in America. A fun day in a very powerful car just got a lot less fun.

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I should probably explain why going into Virginia to have fun in a car is a bad idea in the first place. See, they're crazy about speeding there. Really, really crazy. Speed limits are set absurdly low, 45 mph on some highways. Radar detectors are illegal, and cops have devices to detect them. And if you get caught going over 80 mph at all, that's automatically a reckless driving charge.

Reckless driving is not a traffic citation, it's a criminal charge, and a Class One misdemeanor at that. That means it's the highest level of misdemeanor you can be charged with in Virginia, right below a felony. The maximum penalty for a reckless driving conviction is a $2,500 fine, a six month driver's license suspension, and up to a year in jail.

See what I mean when I told you it's serious? They hand it out like it's Halloween candy, too. You drive 20 mph over the limit, it's reckless driving. They even charge you with it for failing to properly signal, or when you're found to be at fault in a car wreck. I've heard of some cases where people get 30 days in jail if they speed over 100 mph.

Other Class One misdemeanors in Virginia include animal cruelty, sexual battery, and aiming a firearm at someone. This is how the state regards people who drive over 80 mph.

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I'm also writing to apologize to you all. I made the website I love look bad, and I made my profession look bad. I try to hold myself to a high standard and I fell short of those aspirations. I made a mistake, but I feel like I more than paid for it.

And I'm also writing this, perhaps more than anything else, as a warning to everyone who reads it: Do not speed in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Do not go 20 mph over the speed limit, and do not exceed 80 mph when you're there. Ever. Virginia's cops and courts aren't fricking around when it comes to speed. The state has some of the most beautiful roads and rural scenery in America, but if you're going to hoon there, do it in a Miata or an Austin-Healey or a Fiat 500 Abarth or something, not a car with any actual power. Or better yet, take it to the track. Take your fast car to Summit Point or VIR. I wish I had done that instead.

I'm moving back to Texas soon. My radar detector will be a permanent fixture on my dash where it belongs, but I've lowered my speeds considerably. Once it's over I look forward to not going back to Virginia or D.C. — why I don't like that city is a story for another day — for a long time. But I'll never forget my time there, especially because the extra points on my license, the increased cost of my car insurance, and the fact that I now have a criminal record, won't ever let me.

Just do not speed in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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