Can you go 5 over the speed limit and not get a ticket?
You can go 100 MPH over the speed limit and not get at ticket. What’s your point?
Depends on where and the circumstances…
If you’re doing 5mph over speed limit during rush hour down a crowded highway…then chances are NO…
If it’s at 3am on a back road in a small town then…YES…
There is no legally enforceable 5 mph grace period anywhere in the US, as far as I know. Individual law enforcement agencies may have local policies on grace periods, they can change them at will or ignore them, and individual officers have a great deal of leeway on enforcement. But if there are 100 cars going 20 mph over the limit and you are going 4 mph over the limit and they catch you, they can give you a ticket.
Most of the time yes. One reason is most cars speedometers read a couple of mph lower than actual. Another is cops give a couple of mph leeway before jumping out of the bushes to chase a speeder.
But on a slow night when you are the only one on the road, 5 mph over might get you a ticket.
My feeling is 5 mph over is going to be ok, 10 mph over is going to put you in “ticket zone”. Conditions vary and there is no rule that is universal. If you go over the limit you take a risk, the more you exceed the limit and the more often you exceed the limit increases the the risk.
Exactly
A huge amount of enforcement is dependent upon the discretion/judgment of the individual officer.
Too many people have assumed, with no basis in fact, that one is always allowed a 5 mph leeway on speed limits. While it would be unusual to get a ticket for going only 5 mph over a limit, it does happen and it happens with total legality and legitimacy. On the other hand, as SDWH stated, one can frequently drive WAY above the speed limit without being caught/ticketed.
Whether one gets a ticket depends on many factors, but there is only one factor that is within the control of a driver, and that is his speed. All of the other factors are not within his control, and chance or luck is one of them.
Thanks for your suggestion. I would like to go for actual speed limit.
You can get a ticket for 1 MPH over the limit. Whether it will get tossed out by the judge is another story. Cops can ticket you for virtually anything they want. What holds up in court is decided by the judge or jury.
Twotone
You can get a ticket even if you’re NOT going over the speed limit…
Many years ago I was leaving Cape Cod…and as I entered the highway I got pulled over for speeding…Ticket said I was doing 75 in a 55 zone…I JUST got on the highway going uphill…I wasn’t even doing 50…let alone going 75…My S-15 could NOT accelerate that fast…But the local cops were pulling everyone over with out of state plates (like VT and NH) and giving them a ticket. They must have had 10 cars pulled over at one time…As with most of the other cars I just paid the fine…it wasn’t worth a 4 hour drive (2 down and 2 back) plus a 3-5 hour wait for the possibility of being found NOT guilty…
There’s the tradition of ticketing New Yorkers going through Georgia on their way to Florida. Since many of these would be upscale cars, an underpaid Georgia sheriff would relish ticketing any car going even 1 mph over the limit.
Where I live the traffic normally goes a few miles over the limit. Cops are required to keep the flow smooth, and don’t interfere with such flow. However in school zones they are very finicky, for good reason.
It depends on the speed limit. If the speed limit is 70, probably not. If it’s 25 and there is a cop around, you probably will. If the weather is awful on that 70 MPH road and you are still going 75, the you probably will get a ticket. It’s hard to figure out what you mean with such a vague post.
You should modify that - - a lot of small towns will get you for 5 over or less. It’s how they fill their coffers, and they know it’s a pretty safe bet the ticket will be paid, because most people are just passing through and won’t be able to or want to come back for the court date.
Most cops will let you get away with 5 or so mph over. But that’s 5 mph over according to their equipment, not yours. There are lots of speedometers out there that do not read accurately. That’s one of the reasons the cops give you that buffer - if your speedometer is reading 5mph low, then you might be speeding while you think you’re doing the speed limit.
But if that’s the case, and you assume you get 5mph as a freebie, and so you go 5mph over, you’d actually be going 10mph over, and would then get a ticket.
You’re right - people have assumed that there is some sort of grace window on speed, and there isn’t any legal right.
But in reality, there are enough people driving 10+ mph over the limit and/or dangerously driving that police are normally unlikely to waste their time pulling over someone going 4 mph over the limit. If the driver decides to contest such a ticket, there are numerous issues which could result in the ticket being modified. Speedo accuracy, for example - there’s an easy 1-2 mph buffer from that in itself. Judges are often more than willing to modify a simple ticket like that for a driver with a clean record and make it a low-cost non-moving violation.
So why would the cop pull you over when some fool will likely come by at 10-15 mph over the limit in the next few minutes and represent a much bigger ticket and one that is more likely to stick?
In any case, if I drive 55 (the speed limit) on my commute home, there are many days I would pose a hazard at such a speed. I can do 60 and still look like the sloth…
Totally depends on the police officer. Around here, in most cases, yes.
It depends on the cop you end up with. Out of state plates are more likely to get tickets that could easily be contested as well, as someone else mentioned. I was passing through Indiana once, on my way home to Illinois, when I was pulled over by a county cop. It was about 2AM on a deserted Interstate 74, just me and the cop car riding beside me. There was another cop car ahead, parked in the breakdown lane with his lights on. I slowed down to let the cop riding beside me pass, but he continued to match my speed. I tried speeding up, but the same thing happened. I kept my distance from the breakdown lane as best I could since I was being confined to the right lane, as well as slowing down to about 50 to pass the cop car in the breakdown lane. I got pulled over by the cop who had been riding beside me and given a $165 ticket for failure to yield right of way to an emergency vehicle. The cop knew I wouldn’t be driving four hours one way to contest it, so he decided to use me to enhance the revenue of his county.
My last speeding ticket was over ten years around Albany going from NYC to VT. Living in CO I was not going to go back there to contest it. I hired a traffic offense lawyer in Albany to represent me. He got it reduced to a zero point, non-moving violation. The $200 I paid to the lawyer would have been about equal to the speeding fine. I rather pay the lawyer than the state of NY just for the principle. Out-of-state tickets can be contested by local lawyers. Google them and ask for a fixed price fee.
Twotone
You could get a ticket for going 1 over. If your speeding, your speeding. But most will keep reading the current issue of Mad Magazine. IMOO most cops are looking to catch the big fish and let the minnows swim by although that does not mean you will not get a ticket.
Just wednesday night at 10pm I am going 9 over on a 2 lane blacktop out in the middle of the prairie and at a 4 way stop I discovered I was being followed by Buford T Justice. He never pulled me over but pulled off spun around and waited, I suppose for something more worthwhile.
Can you get a ticket for 5 over? Yes, your speeding.
most cars speedometers read a couple of mph lower than actual.
Most cars speedometers register higher than you are really going. (generally 3-5%) The manufacturers generally do this to avoid the possibility for liability if the normal manufacturing variance is off.From a practical stand point when I worked, going as much as 8 to 10 over may not get you a speeding ticket. What seems to be an illogical set of circumstances to the civilian often made sense to the officer when making this decision. Was the speeding part of a multiple offense ? If so, everything including the kitchen sink and less than 5+ could be included. Was it 5+ in a school zone with a flashing yellow light ? Was it late at night and a well lit highway and very light traffic. Cops don’t make these decisions in isolation and departments usual have guidelines. You can have intoxication involvement for example very little leniency will be shown as well. I let one local go by at over the speed limit one day in one area but immediately nabbed an oil truck on a narrow street with out side walks for the same speed over. Oil trucks and bigger harder to control vehicles or those towing should be especially more vulnerable. You make a stop and find bad tires on a car…that could be a go for a lower than normal over the speed limit ticket.