With as much time as we spend on the road in Southern California, the likelihood of committing a driving offense is much higher. One common way that driving poses the risk of landing you in jail or facing other steep penalties is reckless driving.
Reckless driving is defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23103 as driving with willful disregard for the safety of persons or property. This is a misdemeanor offense that can carry potentially serious consequences. CVC 23103 also defines reckless driving as driving a vehicle in an off-street parking facility with willful disregard for the safety of persons or property.
Because of the danger that this brings to yourself and those around you, California law punishes this either by fines or imprisonment.. If you are convicted of reckless driving, you can be fined up to $2,000 including penalty assessments and sentenced to up to 90 days in jail. If convicted, you can also receive two points on your driver’s license, so being proactive and discussing your case with a skilled and knowledgeable Wallin & Klarich attorney must be a priority.
What Defenses Can an Attorney Use in a Reckless Driving Case?
The prosecution in a reckless driving case must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your illegal maneuver in your vehicle (such as excessive speeding), was done intentionally, and that it put people at risk of being injured or killed.
Police officers will often use the general rule of thumb that making three moving violations in rapid succession falls under these criteria, and is reckless driving.
Having valid legal defenses provided by an experienced reckless driving attorney is crucial, especially since the law itself is so vaguely worded. Below are some to consider:
1) Did Not ...
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...forcement calibrated the equipment they used to measure your speed recently. Law enforcement must also have used the equipment correctly and prove that the car they measured was the car they pulled over.
Without an experienced reckless driving defense attorney, the court may not that the officer who pulled you over provide any of this proof. Our attorneys can bring this challenge to the court’s attention.
5) Proper Signage:
Because one of the criteria for reckless driving is that you willfully disregarded the law, this implies that you knew you were breaking the law. If your reckless driving charge is a result of excessive speeding, then there must have been sufficient and proper signs for you to see. We can determine if this was the case at the time and place of your arrest and help bring evidence of improper or obstructed signage to the attention of the court.
As pointed out by Meagher JA in Marien v Gardiner it is not possible that the driver could foresee and react to any event that could take place within the area surrounding the vehicle. Therefore, the driver could not have breached his duty of care in any circumstance that an object by chance is to collide with a vehicle on the road.
Aggressive driving can also result from drunk or drug driving and distracted driving. It is hence densely woven into multiple road dangers.
A DUI offense is a serious matter and should not be taken lightly. In the state of California if you have a blood alcohol level of .08% or higher it is illegal to be behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. If you are pulled over you can be convicted of driving under the influence. California’s DUI law also includes driving under the influence of illegal drugs, prescription drugs, over the counter medication and drugs with alcohol in them such as cough syrup. Penalties for a DUI include license suspension, fines, jail time, community service, AA meetings DUI School, an ignition interlock device and an SR-22 filing. If you are under 21 years of age, California has a zero tolerance law meaning any amount of alcohol found in your system will be considered driving under the influence. You face having your license suspended for one year, additional fines, and must complete the educational portion of DUI School. If you are 21 or older on your first DUI offense you face immediate license suspension depending on if you take the chemical test, up to six months in jail, more than a $1,000 in fin...
Driving is a privilege Americans have been afforded since the invention of the automobile in the late 1800’s. Yet with great power comes great responsibility. One of the responsibilities associated with being able to drive several tons of metal at high speeds is the responsibility of doing so without any distractions or impairments. Choosing to drive drunk puts not only the driver in danger, but also everyone else in the car and on the road. Currently, the average drunk driver will drive eighty times before getting caught by the police (1). On average, one third of all people will be involved in a drunk driving accident during the course of their lifetimes (7). Whereas driving drunk once can be seen as a mistake and a one-time lapse in judgment, choosing to recklessly ignore the law and the safety of others is a serious offense against society. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that one in three persons arrested for drunk driving are repeat offenders (2).
California's Highway 17, which stretches between San Jose and Santa Cruz, can now officially stake the dubious claim of being the most dangerous road in the state. Recently, crashes along this roadway have reached a 10-year high. In 2015, there were a staggering 664 accidents along this 26.5 mile stretch of highway, and 2016 is on track to be even worse. This past January alone there were 95 accidents, which is 3X the accidents that were recorded in January 2015.
This means that the drivers are essentially driving around on the road blindly (“What” 1). Texting while driving causes 1,600,000 accidents per year, 333,000 injuries per year, and 11 teen deaths every day (“DWI” 1). Driving while intoxicated seems like the most significant cause of accidents, while on the road, however, texting while driving is much more hazardous. Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to cause an accident than driving while intoxicated and is the same as driving after four beers (“DWI”
Statistics show 16- to 17-year-old driver death rates increase with each additional passenger, which is due to distracted driving. Taking your eyes off the road for 2 (two) seconds, at 60 mph, means you have driven blindly for half the length of a football field. The risk of fatality is 3.6 times higher, when they are driving with passengers than when alone. For many years, the correlation between driving behavior and age has interested highway safety researchers and administrators. It is general knowledge that the greatest risk of motor vehicle crash...
I rear ended a car due to the action of distracted driving. Distractions while driving can include anything from the use of social media on a cellular phone, messing with a navigation system, brushing one's hair, speaking to the passengers, or eating a big mac. In my situation, I was toying with the music in my car. I was dissatisfied with the current song so I decided to switch it up. I was at a stoplight so at the time I thought it would be okay for me to change the song. But within the timespan of a blink of an eye, my foot went off the brake and I rear-ended the car in front of me. I was following the car way too closely so by the time I realized my foot had wavered I already made a mark on the car ahead of me. I wanted to fist bump to
No one should feel like they are in danger while on the road because of intoxicated drivers. If someone incorporates alcohol with the instrumentality of an automobile it can be very hazardous. As a matter of fact, driving while under the influence is reprehensible by people that have been physically or mentally injured by drivers that are intoxicated. In other words, intoxicated drivers have killed copious amounts of people and ruined the lives of many others. One knows the consequences of driving intoxicated but they do not have self control to stop themselves picking up a drink where that alcohol is present. They realize what they did was wrong after the problem has taken place. When people become aware of the effects of driving while intoxicated they should prevent these troubling incidents by obeying state laws, planning ahead, and being accountable.
Speed limit signs are posted on every road in this country, and 80% of car crashes in the US involve a lack of adherence to the speed limit, but most drivers, teens included, don’t find them to be important. More often than not, speed limits are seen as “guidelines” rather than rules. This mistake, although common, can mean the difference between life and death.
Distracted driving: the practice of driving a motor vehicle while engaged in another activity. Anything besides focusing on the road can be considered distracted driving. Most people would think that the only real distraction while driving is the use of a cell phone, however, that is entirely untrue. There are people that give the term, distracted driving, a whole new meaning. People do everything from fixing their makeup to shaving while driving in their cars. Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car crashes in the United States.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines aggressive driving as "the operation of a motor vehicle in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger persons or property"—a traffic and not a criminal offense like road rage. Examples include speeding or driving too fast for conditions, improper lane changing, tailgating and improper passing. Approximately 6,800,000 crashes occur in the United States each year; a substantial number are estimated to be caused by aggressive driving. 1997 statistics compiled by NHTSA and the American Automobile Association show that almost 13,000 people have been injured or killed since 1990 in crashes caused by aggressive driving. According to a NHTSA survey, more than 60 percent of drivers consider unsafe driving by others, including speeding, a major personal threat to themselves and their families. About 30 percent of respondents said they felt their safety was threatened in the last month, while 67 percent felt this threat during the last year. Weaving, tailgating, distracted drivers, and unsafe lane changes were some of the unsafe behaviors identified. Aggressive drivers are more likely to drink and drive or drive unbelted. Aggressive driving can easily escalate into an incident of road rage. Motorists in all 50 states have killed or injured other motorists for seemingly trivial reasons. Motorists should keep their cool in traffic, be patient and courteous to other drivers, and correct unsafe driving habits that are likely to endanger, antagonize or provoke other motorists. More than half of those surveyed by NHTSA admitted to driving aggressively on occasion. Only 14 percent felt it was "extremely dangerous" to drive 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. 62 percent of those who frequently drive in an unsafe and illegal manner said police for traffic reasons had not stopped them in the past year. The majority of those in the NHTSA survey (52 percent) said it was "very important" to do something about speeding. Ninety-eight percent of respondents thought it "important" that something be done to reduce speeding and unsafe driving. Those surveyed ranked the following countermeasures, in order, as most likely to reduce aggressive and unsafe driving behaviors: (1) more police assigned to traffic control, (2) more frequent ticketing of traffic violations, (3) higher fines, and (4) i...
The offence of driving carelessly is judged to an objective standard, the standard of a reasonable man and his driving skills. This poses a number of issues as firstly, what is the reasonable standard and when does the defendant fall under that standard. It is part of human nature to make errors from time to time, whether they are minor or major. Every driver at some point through their driving history has made some error. So when the mistake is a lapse in concentration and they were just under the standard of a careful driver but an unlikely outcome of death occurs, it undoubtedly cannot be justified to convict that person.
Reckless driving is extremely dangerous and is considered to be anyone who is driving with carelessness and/or who has no regard for the safety of others on the road. Reckless driving is considered to be a misdemeanor. A misdemeanor is a criminal act that is less severe then receiving a felony. Your punishments are also not as severe as penalties. Penalties for reckless driving include fines of up to $1,000, jail time, getting your parole revoked, two points on your driving record, insurance rates to go up, insurance can be cancelled and/or license suspension. Reckless driving includes speeding, not using signals, not using your headlights, disregarding traffic signs and signals, distracted driving, drag racing, and using a cell/smartphone while driving. In some cases a DUI can be deemed a “dry reckless”, which means the person was driving with disregard for others on the road. This charge is less serious then a DUI charge. If you have been pulled over for DUI and believe that it could be reduced to a “dry reckless” you should contact an attorney right away. Drag racing or a speed co...
Drunk driving is a hot topic in today’s media, because it is very important not to drink and drive. Traffic accidents are mostly caused by people driving under the influence, between the age of 15 and 29, DUI is one of the main causes of death. Drinking has a bad side effect it could possible damage or even kill a liver The illegal crime may not involve actual driving of the vehicle, but rather may generally include being physically in control of a car while intoxicated even if the person charged is not driving. Alcohol affects you in a way that changes your decision, depth awareness as well as important motor skills required to drive safely. It’s easy for them to think that they are driving normal when truly they are not. When the police take sign you could be hit with a DUI/DWI. This is the best case situation. Getting into an accident your life could be lost as well as any others