The state of Florida is attempting to crack down on the problem of drivers substantially exceeding the speed limit and performing stunts behind the wheel. House Bill 351, “Dangerous Excessive Speeding,” became law at midnight on July 1. The law, which imposes higher penalties for drivers exceeding the speed limit by 50 mph or hitting at least 100 mph, was put to the test only two minutes after it went live when a driver was clocked running 104 mph in a 70 mph zone, classifying him as a “super speeder.”
Florida regulators say the state has long had a problem with its drivers participating in street racing, street takeovers, stunt driving, and excessive speeding. Street takeovers, which have been a problem all over America, have sometimes plagued cities like Tampa, Orlando, and Miami. One of the most recent street takeovers, WKMG News reports, happened only on July 4, when drivers shut down an intersection in Orlando to perform donuts in a crowd. Of course, these folks got into that Independence Day spirit by shooting fireworks out of their vehicles..
In 2024, as NBC 6 South Florida reports, one Pompano Beach street takeover ended in tragedy when a driver fleeing from police allegedly struck and killed a cyclist. This isn’t unique to Florida, either. There are countless tragic news reports from all over the nation detailing the gruesome events that happen when street takeovers, street races, and excessive speeding go wrong.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports that nearly 10 percent of the traffic deaths in the state between 2019 and 2023 had excessive speed as a contributing factor. The state’s data further says that 84 percent of speeding-involved traffic fatalities involved male drivers, usually aged between 16 and 25.
According to a statistic quoted by a recent report by Hemmings, speed was noted as a contributing factor in 11,775 traffic deaths in America in just 2023 alone. That was 29 percent of all traffic fatalities that year. So, there are understandably a lot of people who want to curb reckless driving to save lives.
Florida’s New Speeding Law
According to Florida Politics, one of the inspirations behind the new law, nicknamed the “Super Speeder Law,” was the death of a child, from Florida Politics:
The legislation follows a measure [Sen. Jason Pizzo] successfully carried in 2024 to help law enforcement address dangerous drag racers, stunt drivers and street takeovers that in recent years have led to thousands of arrests and several deaths across Florida.
Pizzo, who lives in South Florida, said this year’s measure was inspired by a tragedy close to home. He recounted the story of 11-year-old Anthony Reznick, who on the morning of Feb. 10, 2022, was struck and killed on a Sunny Isles Beach crosswalk by a driver who had been issued more than two dozen traffic citations and had her license suspended multiple times.
The woman who killed Reznick, Samentha Toussaint, was driving without insurance. Her headlights weren’t on, Pizzo said, and she was driving at roughly 85 mph in a residential area. A judge suspended her license for eight years, ordered her to pay a $1,000 fine and court costs, and required her to perform 120 hours of community service. She was never criminally charged.
Florida’s efforts to curb reckless driving include, among other legislation, House Bill 351 and Senate Bill 1782. House Bill 351 was filed in February 2025 by Republican representatives Danny Alvarez of Hillsborough County and Susan Plasencia of Orlando, and signed into law. Democratic senator Jason Pizzo of Miami-Dade introduced his own version of the proposal, Senate Bill 1782, in February as well. House Bill 351 stated:
Section 1. Section 316.1922, Florida Statutes, is created to read:
16 316.1922 Dangerous excessive speeding.—
(1) A person commits dangerous excessive speeding if he or she operates a motor vehicle:
(a) In excess of the speed limit by 50 mph or more.
(b) At 100 mph or more in a manner that threatens the safety of other persons or property or interferes with the operation of any vehicle.(2) A person convicted of dangerous excessive speeding shall be punished:
(a) Upon a first conviction, by imprisonment for up to 30 days or by a fine of $500, or by both a fine and imprisonment.
(b) 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.
Senate Bill 1782 had harsher penalties. Per that bill, a first offense for reckless driving would have resulted in a $1,000 fine, revoked the driver’s driving privileges for six months, and impounded their car for 30 days. Someone offending for a second time would have seen the fine jack up to at least $2,500, plus a one-year license suspension, and a 30-day car impoundment.
House Bill 351 ended up replacing Senate Bill 1782. It passed the House 75 to 40 and won a unanimous vote in the Senate before being signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis. One of those who pushed back in the House was Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani, who said, via Hemmings: “There continues to be a trend in the Florida Legislature of enhancing criminal penalties and/or creating new criminal penalties… statistically speaking, there is no clear data to demonstrate that enhanced penalties reduce crime.”
A Buick Envision Hits Triple Digits
Rep. Eskamani’s point might have been demonstrated only two or three minutes after the law went live on July 1. According to a body cam video (above) released by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, an unnamed driver in Orange County was caught going 104 mph in a 70 mph zone. GM Authority clocks the vehicle in the video to be a newer Buick Envision, perhaps a 2024 or 2025 model. My eyes concur.
The driver was informed of the new law and was then arrested. Based on the provisions of the new law, the driver could face up to 30 days in jail, a fine of $500, or a fine plus imprisonment. Further details about this traffic stop have not been released at this time.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office says that, since the beginning of the year, it has stopped at least 100 cars per month after clocking them at speeds above 100 mph.
Top graphic image: Buick
I know I’m getting old as I thought “huh, that Buick looks kinda good for a domestic SUV”
‘Domestic SUV’ that’s assembled by GM-SAIC and imported from Shanghai, China.
As a teenager (maybe I was 20?) I got pulled doing 103 in a 55mph, on Peña Boulevard – an eight-lane superhighway going to DIA in Denver with a bizarrely low speed limit, which must have earned the city of Denver millions upon millions of dollars. The cop said he could either let me go or take me to jail; I thought it was a rhetorical question and kept quiet until he said “well, which one is it!?”. I chose to go home.
That was absolutely a big fundraiser there. Got hit there for 6 over once.
I have seen studies that suggest harsher penalties do not reduce crime. The thing that does reduce crime is the likleyhood of getting caught. Its possible that if you increase penaties but the likleyhood of getting caught remains the same the new law will have very little impact.
As my wife sometimes says, if you want to kill someone and get away with it, do it with a car.
If you have over 24 tickets and are driving with a suspended license and no insurance and you KILL a person in a crosswalk, you should get more then a fine and a slap on the wrist. This is what actual law enforcement should be working on instead of kidnappping folks with no due process. Instead a senator just makes a new “law”.
Yeah that lady should have been charged with vehicular manslaughter. But unfortunately they probably thought it was too hard to win the case. Or alternatively the police didn’t give a shit. In the northern Midwest it is a sadly common occurrence, especially if the person killed is not considered white and the driver is.
If you have 24 tickets, driving with a suspended license and no insurance you have no regard for the law and your actions will not be impacted by new laws.
Oh for sure. The people who don’t care ruin things for everyone else and pointless laws get created to fluff up a senator’s resume.
100 on the highway here in Florida is honestly not uncommon at all. I usually do about 80 on 95 or the turnpike where the limit is 70. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t passed by somebody doing 20-30 faster. 80 is the slow lane.
We drove 11 hours home from the beach to our place in Kentucky after our vacation was over this past Saturday, and I was shocked at how many people passed us (while we were going 80 in our minivan). Three Toyota Camries, one Hyundai Sonata, a few lifted brodozer pickup trucks, and some other vehicles all blew by going at least 100 on I-65 at various points.
New Fast and Furry movies with 15 speed Buicks: the Born to be Mild series!
I smell box office!
A good start but take the vehicle away take their license away
Excellent way to increase high speed pursuits.
104 in a 70 doesn’t feel like what this law was ostensibly meant to be for. I only own slow cars nowadays, but 100 in a 70-zone is just barely faster than average and hardly street racing or Super Excessive Speeding.
Nine your fine, ten your mine. I go by that rule of thumb, providing it’s not a 25-mph zone.
Repeat offenders who drive like arseholes, such as Samentha Toussaint, are the ones who should be populating Alligator Alcatraz.
Having a powerful vehicle doesn’t mean you always have to use all of it, ferchrissakes.
Power corrupts feeble minds.
I don’t have a solution to prevent this kind of asshattery, but I also don’t think this Super Speeder law is it.
Mustang rallies show owners are not capable of driving the vehicle
Depends.
I met a mustang pro racer living on the same street as a guy I had turned in.
He had called in the guy too.
Same reason- idiocy, not speed.
My fox body, not a mustang, has a 408, track suspension, and AC.
It’s never been taken to top speed yet.
I’ve never had it past 150 or so.
There’s more there, there.
I think it’s telling we both thought this same guy was dangerous at 50 mph.
Teenage girls used to cruise giant Caddys at 100 mph without incident.
Hitting Houston used to make me feel like I had ended up on a road course by a wrong turn.
Perhaps that is why I don’t attend them in mine.
That new law is a joke and I can’t believe that woman got a slap on the wrist for killing that kid. No wonder no one is deterred from doing such dumb stuff in that state.
In my state (not USA), dangerous driving, which amongst other things includes going more that 45km/h over the speed limit, can result in up to roughly US$30,000 in fines and/or 2 years in prison. If your dangerous driving kills someone it’s up to 10 years in prison. That’s proper deterrence, which unfortunately still isn’t enough for some people.
A better approach is teaching people how to drive.
I don’t see how teaching people to drive better will stop them from speeding. It’s not really an issue of skill – more of idiocy.
Most new drivers now don’t know what driver skill is, and are completely clueless that emergency driving techniques even exist.
If people are offered skills, they may embrace them for their own rewards, or simply for their own safety.
Teach them the car should be considered sacrificial when it’s a matter of survival.
Students leave high schools now thinking cars are just little buses.
We have to share the roads with them!
You shouldn’t have to teach someone to not do 85MPH in a residential area. Parenting and/or common sense should handle that. Samentha should be in prison.
I have no reasonable explanation for anyone doing that, but I think trained drivers are less likely to drive stupid.
I’ve seen drivers in city neighborhoods run through stop signs where all corners are blind corners, even rolling cars in crashes.
Even at 4 am, I never assumed the road was open past the corner.
Florida doesn’t make sense.
I think I remember some kid putting a plastic lawn chair in the road. A cop stopped and walked across the highway at night to remove it. He was hit and killed by a car. Kid I believe was charged with murder.
Not defending the kid, but I’ve seen cops removing debris from a highway, and they NEVER leave the cruiser. For something like this, they’d slow down with their lights on, reach out the window and drag it too the side of the road. For something larger they’ll call the highway department and set up a safe area for the workers to take care of it.
I don’t know how one guy can get charged (and I believe convicted) with far less direct action toward the death than this woman doing 85 through a red light and killing a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
It’s Florida, so we can safely assume there’s some influence / corruption involved.
Florida is not America’s wang, it is America’s appendix – offering no benefit but able to cause pain and death.
I have to drive around FL north of Tampa a few times a year. Jebus! I hate it. The drivers do not even have tread on their tires.
“Don’t Tread on Me,” says the Florida pavement.
As a younger lad, maybe 24 right out of the Navy, I was (trying) to follow my roommate and his passenger out of downtown New Orleans back to our apartment. When he crested 100mph I gave up. He ended up getting pulled over shortly after this.
He told me later that the cop told him if I had to chase you another 500′ you would be going to jail tonight. I’m assuming the 100+ was a factor? (ironic part – my roommate was a cop who opted not to show his ID this time. He got out of a smaller speeding ticket with his ID earlier.)
Multiple offender? 100+? Kill someone? Should be auto jail time, crush the car.
Killing someone automatic jail time? Kill someone automatic life sentence. Remember the victim and screw the criminals who had a bad upbringing or made a temporary bad judgement call. If dui is a crime murdering sober is a crime even worse
I have to be that guy today.
“The woman who killed Reznick, Samentha Toussaint, was driving without insurance. Her headlights weren’t on, Pizzo said, and she was driving at roughly 85 mph in a residential area. A judge suspended her license for eight years, ordered her to pay a $1,000 fine and court costs, and required her to perform 120 hours of community service. She was never criminally charged.”
How in hell was this person not criminally charged for killing someone with her car with all of the other attendant violations she also had?
In this separate case, it took multiple stops for literally anything to happen to this guy too, and he was openly being a spoiled, entitled ass about the whole thing:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/belltown-hellcat-driver-to-serve-30-days-in-jail/
To be clear, I acknowledge that people make mistakes and should get second chances. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve also paid for them. I don’t think you need to ruin someone’s life over a couple of traffic violations, even “bad” ones. But if you can’t learn your lesson with endless citations, suspensions and fines, jail can be an awfully good teacher. The absolutely ludicrous level of shit that repeat (and repeat, and repeat) offenders get away with is infuriating.
Especially since one of those prior offenses was driving with a suspended license. This suspension is not going to prevent her from driving.
I’m really surprised that speeding THAT much over wasn’t already a serious crime. IIRC, in Maine 30 over is “criminal speed” and will get you cuffed and stuffed in short order.
I keep it to 90 on the Floridabahn anyway.
Yeah, in ME the magic number is 30. Many many years ago I was doing well over 85 over on that flat wide stretch of Rt 26 in Paris. State Trooper going the opposite direction did an immediate 180 and chased after me. I ended up being pulled over across the road from Snow Falls. I figured I was going straight to jail, but I did the play nice, play dumb, be polite routine. First thing he says to me is “do you have any idea how fast you were going?!” “Honestly, sir, I wasn’t paying attention, but judging by the way you turned around and came after me it must have been pretty damn fast.” I have never in my life been so happy to get a ticket for going 15 over.
They definitely have some discretion. My worst was my very first ticket – 62 in a 35 in Cumberland on Middle Rd. Then I got a 70 in a 55 on the Turnpike the very next day. I was very young and very, very dumb.
Only one ticket this century though, in Montana in the middle of nowhere for 88 in a 70. Paid ($40!) on the spot, never reported to Maine.
A lot of law enforcement in the big open states leave people alone if they feel they are being careful.
In Montana they never were happy about the 55mph limit so they didn’t exactly cite you for speeding and instead said the fine was for wasting resources or something like that. They also kept the fines low and payable on the spot, so you definitely made sure you had cash in your pocket when traveling through there at that time. Once the federal gov’t completely eliminated the speed limit mandate MT went to Reasonable and Prudent on interstates and highways during the day time. I crossed it several times in that era, usually at 90-95mph. Some times pacing cops and other times passing the slower ones.
The “Nickle Ticket”. It was $5, for “wasting natural resources”. In 1989, we took a familial “discover your roots road trip” in our new Grand Caravan. Dad got pulled over in The Big Sky State for doing 85-90mph, and the officer explained the routine and dad handed him the fiver and off we went.
Mom was not happy.
Her displeasure continued when it became known that a guy in the office let him know in advance, so it was interpreted as premeditated speeding in the Court of Spouse.
My first ticket was 69 in a 55 (NIce!). I was going north of 80 when my fuzz buster went off. But anything over 15 over was a court appearance, so the cop wrote me up for 69, knowing I would pay the same and he wouldn’t have to come to court.
Same thing happened to my wife. 82 in a 65. There it was anything over 85. Cop said he put 82 because if he did too many 85s, his boss asked questions .
I have no idea why I typed “over” twice there–anyhow probably clear from context I was going over 85, not 85 over. Speed limit there is 50.
My auto correct has gone bonkers lately.
Maybe yours too?
That dude must be old af LOL
I mean, Buick and Florida? Yeah he was late for bingo!!!!!!!
Having seen the video, it was a younger guy. 20s?
Samentha Toussaint got off way light. Should be in prison for killing a kid. But I guess Florida doesn’t care about them as much after they’re born.
I mean didn’t they pass a law that it’s OK to drive through protests if they blocking the road?
This “super speeder” law is about $$ not saving lives
It always has been.
Comes under illegal detention/ kidnapping when rioters detain citizens.
Legal protests don’t block roads, by literal definition.
Too common for thugs to block cars as a prelude to assault, carjacking and murder.
Very much agreed. A couple years in a cell and a lifetime ban, minimum.
Slap on the wrist. **EYEROLL**