Nearly every speeding case in Florida is a civil infraction. You get a citation, you pay a fine, you take points or elect a course, and the matter ends without an arrest or a criminal record. On July 1, 2025 the Legislature carved the top of that range out and made it a crime. Section 316.1922 created the offense of dangerous excessive speeding, and a first conviction carries jail. The number on the citation now decides which side of the criminal line a case starts on, and moving it back across that line is usually the whole job.
What the 2025 Law Created
Chapter 2025-77, Laws of Florida, took effect on July 1, 2025 and created section 316.1922. Most coverage calls it the super speeder law, a nickname borrowed from Georgia that appears nowhere in the Florida text. A driver commits dangerous excessive speeding in either of two ways. The first is exceeding the speed limit by 50 mph or more. The second is driving at 100 mph or more in a manner that threatens the safety of other persons or property, or that interferes with the operation of any vehicle.
Those two routes are not the same, and the difference matters. The 50-over route is a pure number, so the case rises and falls on the measurement. The 100 mph route asks for the number and something more, because the State also has to prove the manner of driving threatened someone or interfered with another vehicle. That second element is a real burden, and it is frequently the weaker half of the State’s case.
The law has a real problem behind it, and it is worth saying so before taking it apart. A car travelling at 100 mph covers about 150 feet every second, which is roughly half a football field between one glance at the road and the next. Before July 2025 Florida had no criminal charge aimed squarely at extreme speed unless the driving also met the reckless driving standard, which requires a willful or wanton disregard for safety and is considerably harder to prove. The Legislature was closing a real gap.
One drafting point is worth knowing. The statute does not assign the offense a first or second degree misdemeanor label the way most of Chapter 316 does. It sets out its own penalties instead, which is why the exposure has to be read from the section rather than from the usual misdemeanor tables.
I began as an Assistant Public Defender in Florida’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, in Tampa, and today I am one of six ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in the state. A speeding crime is a measurement case before it is anything else, and measurement is the part of this practice I have spent the most time on. Learn more about my background.
The Penalties
| Offense | Exposure | Penalty |
|---|---|---|
| First conviction | Criminal, with jail exposure | Up to 30 days in jail, or a $500 fine, or both |
| Second or subsequent | Criminal, with jail exposure | Up to 90 days in jail, or a $1,000 fine, or both |
| Second within 5 years | License revocation on top | Driving privilege revoked for at least 180 days and no more than 1 year |
Source: section 316.1922, Florida Statutes, created by chapter 2025-77, Laws of Florida, effective July 1, 2025. The revocation applies where the later violation occurs within 5 years after the date of a prior conviction under the same section. Statute text verified August 2026 against the enrolled session law.
The jail exposure is the headline, and the revocation is the part that reaches further into a person’s life. A second conviction inside five years takes the license for at least six months, which for many folks is the difference between keeping a job and losing one.
Thirty Over Already Means a Mandatory Court Date
Below the criminal threshold, Florida still treats serious speeding differently from an ordinary ticket. Section 318.19 lists the infractions that require a mandatory hearing, and a person cited for one of them loses the convenience options in section 318.14 and must appear before the designated official at the scheduled hearing.
Two entries on that list matter here. Subsection (5) covers exceeding the speed limit by 30 mph or more, and subsection (6), added by the same 2025 act, covers infractions under section 316.1926(2). If the citation falls in either group, there is no paying it by mail and no quiet election of a course. A court date is part of the charge.
The Same Driving Can Sit on Either Side of the Line
Here is the wrinkle that makes these cases negotiable. Section 316.1926(2) still says that exceeding the speed limit by 50 mph or more is a moving violation punishable under Chapter 318, which is the civil track. Section 316.1922 says the same conduct is a crime with jail attached. Both provisions are on the books at the same time.
That overlap means the charging decision carries enormous weight, and it is a decision made by people who can revisit it. The realistic goal in a great many of these cases is something other than an acquittal at trial. It is moving the case off the criminal track and onto the civil one, where there is no jail, no criminal record, and no conviction to explain on a background check for the rest of a career.
The Case Is Usually About the Measurement
Strip away the label and a 50-over charge is a number produced by an instrument. Section 316.1905 governs those instruments, and it sets conditions the State has to satisfy before the reading means anything. The device must be of a type approved by the department, and it must have been tested for accuracy not less than once every six months, according to the department’s own procedures and intervals.
The approval and testing standards live in the administrative rules, at Chapter 15B-2 of the Florida Administrative Code, titled Speed Measuring Devices. That chapter carries separate rules for Doppler radar and for laser units, minimum design criteria for each, distinct accuracy tests for radar devices, average speed calculators, speedometer devices, and time measurement devices, and a rule listing the approved devices themselves. A unit that is not on that list, or a test that falls outside the required window, is a problem for the State rather than for the driver.
Section 316.1905 also builds in a presumption and a right. Producing a signed and witnessed certificate showing the device was tested within the required period and was working properly establishes that fact by presumption, though the statute says plainly that the presumption falls if the contrary is established by competent evidence. And subsection (3)(c) gives the accused something many people never use: on oral or written motion, the person charged is entitled to have the officer who actually operated the device appear in court and testify.
One honest caution belongs here, because it changes strategy. Under section 90.701 of the Florida Evidence Code, a witness may give a lay opinion about the speed of a motor vehicle. An officer who watched the car can testify to an estimate even where the instrument reading is excluded. Knocking out the device is often decisive, and it is not automatically the end of the speed evidence, so the defense has to account for what the officer saw as well as what the machine printed.
The Arrest Question the New Statute Creates
Turning conduct from an infraction into a crime does more than add a penalty. It changes what an officer may do at the roadside. A civil speeding stop ends in a citation, and in Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113 (1998), the Supreme Court held that issuing a citation does not by itself authorize a full search of the car. Once the same driving can be charged as a crime, an arrest becomes possible, and an arrest is the doorway to a search incident to it.
There is a real argument that the doorway is narrower than it looks. Under Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), a vehicle may be searched incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only where the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment, or where it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. Knowles spoke directly to that second justification in the speeding context, reasoning that once the citation issued, all the evidence necessary to prosecute the offense had been obtained and no further evidence of excessive speed was going to be found on the driver or in the passenger compartment.
Speed lives in the instrument reading and the officer’s observations rather than inside the car, which is why that reasoning travels. No Florida court has settled how it applies to this particular statute, so this is an argument to raise and brief rather than a rule to rely on. It is worth raising, because in these cases what gets found after the stop is frequently the real reason the case matters.
How We Defend a Dangerous Excessive Speeding Charge
The first line is the stop itself. A traffic stop is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and a stop without a genuine basis, or one stretched past its purpose, can suppress everything that came after it. That work is covered in the search and seizure section and it applies here in full.
The second line is the instrument. We ask for the approval status of the specific unit, the testing certificate covering the date of the stop, the six-month history around it, the operator’s training records, and the details of how the reading was taken, including target identification, tracking history, the angle, and the terrain. Where the charge runs through the 100 mph route instead, we press the second element, because a number alone does not prove that the manner of driving threatened anyone or interfered with another vehicle.
The third line is the outcome. Identity of the driver is contested where the facts allow it, and where the proof is strong the work turns to moving the charge onto the civil track under Chapter 318, or to a reckless driving disposition where that is the better result for the license. Which of those is preferable depends on the record, the driving history, and what the client actually needs to protect.
Common Questions
Is speeding a crime in Florida?
Ordinary speeding is a civil infraction resolved with a fine and points. Since July 1, 2025, extreme speeding is different. Section 316.1922 makes it a crime to exceed the speed limit by 50 mph or more, or to drive 100 mph or more in a manner that threatens people or property or interferes with another vehicle, and a first conviction carries up to 30 days in jail.
How fast do you have to be going to be charged with dangerous excessive speeding?
There are two thresholds. The first is 50 mph or more over the posted limit, which turns on the number alone. The second is 100 mph or more, which also requires the State to prove the driving threatened the safety of other persons or property or interfered with the operation of any vehicle. Below those thresholds the charge is an infraction rather than a crime, though 30 mph or more over the limit still requires a mandatory court appearance.
Can I pay a 30-over speeding ticket by mail?
No. Section 318.19 lists the infractions that require a mandatory hearing, and exceeding the speed limit by 30 mph or more is on that list. A person cited for one of those infractions does not get the options in section 318.14 and must appear before the designated official at the scheduled hearing. The 2025 act added infractions under section 316.1926(2) to the same list.
Can the radar or laser reading be challenged?
Yes, and it is usually where the case is fought. Section 316.1905 requires the device to be of a type approved by the department and tested for accuracy at least once every six months, with the approval and testing standards set out in Chapter 15B-2 of the Florida Administrative Code. A signed and witnessed testing certificate creates a presumption that the device was working, but the statute allows that presumption to be rebutted by competent evidence, and the accused is entitled on motion to have the officer who operated the device appear and testify.
Will I lose my license for dangerous excessive speeding?
A first conviction under section 316.1922 does not carry a mandatory revocation in the statute itself, though points and other consequences can follow from the underlying record. A second or subsequent conviction that occurs within five years after a prior conviction under the same section carries a revocation of the driving privilege for at least 180 days and no more than one year.
Related: Misdemeanor traffic offenses, Reckless driving, Racing on a highway, and The stop and the defense.
In the News
This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Dangerous excessive speeding is governed by section 316.1922, Florida Statutes, with related provisions in sections 316.1905, 316.1926, 318.14, and 318.19, and by Chapter 15B-2 of the Florida Administrative Code. The law changes, so penalties should be confirmed against the current statute. Every case turns on its own facts, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
