Florida’s Senate in April passed what it calls a “Super Speeder Law.” Meant to curb exceptionally high-speed drivers, it gives law enforcement the opportunity to jail anyone caught going 50 mph above the speed limit or going over 100 mph—even if it’s their first offense. Despite only being in effect since July 1st, over 70 people have already been charged under the new rule.
Orlando news station WFTV 9 (via Carscoops) dug up arrest records for the past two months connected to the new law, known formally as House Bill 351. It found that 49 people were arrested for going at or above 100 mph, while another 22 people were charged for exceeding the speed limit by 50 mph or more.
Section 316.1922 of the law defines the above speeds as “dangerous excessive speeding,” and outlines the punishments for first-time offenders:
Upon a first conviction, by imprisonment for up to 30 days or by a fine of $500, or by both a fine or imprisonment.
Things only get worse if you get caught again. From the bill:
Upon a second or subsequent conviction, by imprisonment for up to 90 days or by a fine of $1,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. A person convicted of a second or subsequent violation of this section that occurs within 5 years after the date of a prior conviction for a violation of this section shall have his or her driving privilege revoked for at least 180 days but no more than 1 year.
Amazingly, police couldn’t detain everyone they wanted to since the law went into effect. According to WFTV 9, deputies from several districts were prevented from making arrests “because the new charge code wasn’t yet in the system.” The first arrests reportedly didn’t happen until July 15.
Florida Highway Patrol told WFTV 9 it didn’t expect to see so many arrests following the new law’s implementation. The agency gave the news station several examples of “super speeders,” including a 20-year-old in a Dodge Charger clocked at 155 mph. There were two motorcyclists who were traveling 87 mph in a 35-mph zone. They also caught a 25-year-old allegedly traveling at 120 mph, who later told the officer “he thought the trooper was racing him.”
The new code, first introduced into the Florida legislature back in February, was pushed forward by lawmakers to deter speeders in residential neighborhoods and curb high-speed, often deadly highway crashes. Speed was a leading cause of fatal crashes in Florida throughout 2023, according to The Jaspon Firm, contributing to around 30 percent of incidents.
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Whether arresting a handful of people per month will help has yet to be seen. In an analysis of Canadian laws passed in the late 2000s, the NHTSA reported that increasing the severity of penalties for “excessive” speeding did, in fact, reduce fatalities.
Top photo: FHP
Amazing. Florida actually managed to pass a GOOD law.
“Upon a first conviction, by imprisonment for up to 30 days or by a fine of $500, or by both a fine or imprisonment.” Et al.
Laws where the punishment for a violation can be just a fine rather than jail time aren’t exactly all that much of laws since such fines are generally such trifling amounts for so many rich people that the laws might as well not exist at all.
Some countries do tie fines to income levels which might actually provide a modicum of deterrent though it’d be tricky to implement in countries where the rich routinely hide their wealth through tactics such as offshore accounts, shell companies, non-liquid assets, etc, etc.
https://driving.ca/auto-news/crashes/switzerland-speeding-driver-income-fine-penalty
Can they just start with impounding all of the janky Nissan Altimas? We just had to drop the daughter off at college in Florida and they directly contributed to 99% of the automotive jackassery we experienced between Orlando and our destination.
Nissans are responsible for probably 75% of the reckless driving I’ve ever encountered in the wild, especially if we’re counting Infiniti too. The rest is Teslas, pony cars, and German luxury sedans that are leased by 20 something bros who have something to prove.
Excuse me but Dodge Chargers would like a word with you.
Try renting a car at MCO that’s not a huge family hauler, and not getting either a Nissan or a Hyundai-Kia product.
We rented a full size car and somehow ended up getting upgraded to a fully-loaded Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe! A little luxury was nice, but they have a an awful lot to learn from Toyota (I have a ’25 Camry) about smoothly integrating a hybrid system.
I was driving home from work the other day and was stopped in traffic because a bus had broken down on the freeway. The car next to me was also stopped and a Altima came out of nowhere and crashed into the car next to me hard at full freeway speed, no brakes, causing a chain reaction of collisions. I looked over at the Altima and the passenger side airbag had gone off but the driver’s didn’t, which made me think the driver’s airbag had been removed at some point.
I’m probably further left than nearly everyone on this site but I am 1000% behind harsh penalties for reckless drivers. In yee haw land antisocial driving is a public health issue at this point and I genuinely couldn’t care less about the well being of anyone who’s willing to drive 100+ on public roads. At that point you are making a conscious decision to risk the lives of everyone around you and no one hits those speeds by accident.
So sure, throw em in jail and give em felonies for all I care. When it comes to what people do to do with their own safety, their own bodies, etc I’m indifferent. If you want to use substances until you’re dead or do risky shit on your own time for an adrenaline kick then have at it. It’s none of my business. Live your life however you see fit.
But once your actions put other people at risk it’s not just your life anymore. That’s when it becomes antisocial, and antisocial people need to be reprimanded severely. That’s just behavior that I have no tolerance whatsoever for and unfortunately social media incentivizes it. The dude doing 150 in his Charger or whatever can get fucked. If you want to experience those speeds then go to a damn track day.
Yeah, it’s indeed very much a public health issue.
People may talk all they want about personal freedom but it’s not exactly personal freedom to be injured or ourtight killed by someone else’s actions, for crying out loud…
I’m with you, I’m just honestly past trusting law enforcement to apply the laws equally. Or judges and DAs to impose punishments equally.
Let’s ignore the issue is cops and the powerful are exempt.
I abhor Meatball Ron and the xenophobic, homophobic, anti-intellectual culture of bigotry and stupidity that he has fostered in the state I’ve called home for all of my 50+ years. I generally agree with this legislation, but only because it’s pretty basic common-sense stuff. Of course, it has to be dressed up in a thin veneer of tough-guy bullshit just like when he cosplayed as a fighter pilot during his cringey presidential campaign. I guess it can be chalked up to “a broken clock is right twice a day”. I wonder if that second time is going to happen.
There’s a discrepancy in your post. You say you generally agree with his legislation, but you also called him a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-intellectual culture of bigotry. Most of his legislation is xenophobic, homophobic and anti-intellectual.
THIS legislation, as in this bill. Not HIS legislation, as in Alligator Alcatraz, the “conservative makeover” of New College, etc. I can see where the confusion would happen, though.
There was no discrepancy.
We all got DMM’s point
Lol, yeah, the second time’s not likely to happen since the broken clock is actually a 24-hour clock.
https://www.antiquesnavigator.com/archive/2016/05/24/282043331329.jpg
This IS the second time. The first was when he reconstituted Disney’s private government so it wouldn’t be Disney’s as much.
Of course, he immediately took a huge steaming dump on that by stacking the new board with culture warriors who were actually disappointed that their responsibility was strictly infrastructure and seem to have thought they’d get creative control while simultaneously guaranteeing the the people who do have creative control’s jobs would stay in California when the plan had previously been to move them to Florida.
Don’t forget that he dissolved Reedy Creek solely as a response to Disney taking a very mild stand against “Don’t Say Gay”. Basically it was a gubernatorial temper tantrum.
I have mixed feelings about this law. Obviously, arresting someone going 150+ mph in traffic or doing 90 on neighborhood streets is perfectly reasonable. I don’t like that 100 mph per se is grounds for arrest, though. Also, while I don’t think the law is written this way, I usually hear it interpreted as a zero tolerance law where arrest is mandatory for anyone clocked at over 100 mph.
I suspect most of us have gone over 100 mph on an empty highway at some point. It strikes me as unnecessary to arrest someone for going 20-25 mph above typical highway speeds, assuming they are doing so in a reasonable situation.
Florida isn’t Montana or West Texas.
Nope.
I agree most of Florida isn’t conducive to high speeds (I have lived there for several years), but there are a few places with minimal traffic and good visibility. A few that come to mind are Interstate 10 west of Tallahassee, I4 between Daytona and Deland, and the northern 3/4s of the Suncoast Parkway. Those roads aren’t Montana empty, but have times when a high-ish speed run isn’t dangerous to anyone but yourself.
I’m not defending dangerous driving, but it is a poor use of resources to arrest someone going 101 mph on an empty road when the weather and visibility are good. Again, I see this billed as a “zero tolerance” kind of law, which is what I have a problem with. I 100% support arresting drivers who are endangering others , but existing laws allowed for that. This law is 50% common sense and 50% political theater.
What if you’re going 102?
102 mph is situationally dependent.
Speed is morally neutral. I’ve done up to 160 on public roads where it was reasonable and prudent. Speed is fun and prosocial. If you are driving in a way that risks injury to bystanders, that is wrong at any speed.
Again, my frustration is that speed per se is an arrestable offense.
There’s probably a case to be made that if visibility is good, a driver who is able to handle 100+ on public roads is planning for potential hiding places, and if it’s quiet enough for 100+ to be prudent, it’s probably not worth a cop’s time to be out there.
How quaint. The penalties in Ontario are much more onerous. https://www.ontario.ca/page/speeding-and-aggressive-driving
On the one hand, GOOD. The book should be thrown at these morons who are endangering the rest of us, especially on non-Interstate and residential roads. On an empty Interstate, who cares? Blazing past my house at 50 over the speed limit is a bit more of a problem. On the other hand, something less than 100 arrests since the law was passed, in a state of 22 million people plus Dog Knows how many tourists. Yawn.
How about going after the idiots like the guy in a Civic who dive-bombed across three lanes of traffic and would have PIT’d himself against the front of my Mercedes if I hadn’t seen him coming and firewalled the brakes to the tune of full-on ABS activation at 80mph? In heavy traffic. THAT was fun… Missed me by about the thickness of the paint even so, and thankfully the guy behind ME was paying attention too. People weaving through the usual heavy traffic on I-75 is much more of a problem, but Governor DeStupidis veto’d the left lane law that might actually have helped with that.
If there’s a cop to pull over a speeder then by definition the highway isn’t “empty”. There’s someone else there too.
God I hate the stupid “speed was the cause of accidents” bullshit. I have yet to see a study that actually proves that speed is the CAUSE not just a variable in play.
Speed is the cause of fatalities/injuries. Better way to put it.
If you reduce the speed limit to 0, there won’t be any crashes at all… Doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate measure to take.
That said 50 over or 100+ isn’t exactly unreasonable. I think VA was sending people to jail for doing 80, which absolutely IS unreasonable.
Jail for going 100+ on an interstate where the average speed is 85 or more? Probably unreasonable, especially ina relatively modern, well-sorted car. But when it’s an Altima on two donuts, or a brodoser? Now we’ve opened up a whole can of worms.
That said, I have a four year old child – if you’re doing 80 in a 30 I’ll drag your ass to jail myself.
That’s the problem here in good ‘ol FL. The ones doing 100+ are exactly those two examples, plus the usual under 30 douchebag male in a Mustang or FCA product. No scenario in FL requires 100+ on the interstate regardless of traffic. Someone dies every few years hitting a alligator they didn’t see on the road at usual speed, for that matter!
It sounds like someone has never barked their shins on a trailer hitch.
IMHO jerks who leave trailer balls on when not towing deserve to have said trailer balls forcibly thown through their rear windows.
VA fortunately changed that, it’s now 85…which is still crazy considering the state has highways with 75 MPH speed limits but hey…baby steps? 20 over is still an automatic reckless though which seems a little excessive.
People don’t realize that outside of NOVA and Richmond VA is a deep red state. I’m pretty sure the average rural Virginian I’ve met would love to send speeders to the electric chair…although they themselves routinely do 90 MPH in their lifted F350 and mysteriously never get pulled over. Gee I wonder why….
Speed reduces the amount of time you have to react, increases stopping distance, and affects steering wheel input. At some point you have exceeded your limit, so while you might be perfectly capable of responding to a car changing lanes in front of you at 45, it’s completely different if you’re going 100. At a lower speed it’s just a normal driving maneuver, at too high a speed, it’s an accident.
But that is my point. It is a variable. It is not the direct cause of the crash. That was what I was trying to say. You might as well say weight is the cause of all crashes then because if the car was light enough it could stop. It’s just a dumb argument. There are too many variables to make blanket arguments like this. It is bad science.
Differences in speed kills.
Grandma doing 40 when merging onto the freeway and camping out at 55 in the left lane can be just as deadly as Videogame Vinny and Main Character Manny cutting in and out of 70-80 mph traffic at 90-95.
Here ya go!
“Inappropriate speed is responsible for 20 to 30% of all fatal road crashes. After reviewing the current knowledge on the relationship between speed and crash risk, this report analyses eleven cases from ten countries that have recently changed speed limits or introduced a large-scale automatic speed control. The analysis confirms the very strong relationship between speed and crash risk and that higher speed is associated with increased occurrence and severity of road crashes.”
https://www.itf-oecd.org/speed-crash-risk
I read the study. It does say changes in speed can cause accidents but the main conclusion was that speed impacts the severity which is obvious. My point is speeding doesn’t cause a crash. If I drive 10 miles over the speed limit crashing doesn’t immediately occur. It effects the severity and some times speed can be a cause (ie speeding in rain) but if joe blow pulls out in front of you on the freeway, he is the cause of the crash, not the fact you were going 10 miles over. I am the son of a researcher and the whole speed causes crashes is bullshit.