One of the most basic rules of the road is driving the speed limit. It’s also one of the easiest rules to break. It’s estimated that 1 out of 6 drivers gets a speeding ticket each year. So if you’ve gotten a ticket for breaking the speed limit you aren’t alone.
How much will putting the pedal to the metal cost you in California? The short answer is - it depends.
Factors That Affect California Speeding Ticket Fines
If you and a few friends who have received speeding tickets were to sit down and compare fines you may be surprised to find that no one paid the same amount. For starters, every California county sets their own speeding fines. Given that there are 58 counties in the state that means there are dozens of standard fines.
But location isn’t the only consideration. There are a few factors that could be at play for how much you’ll pay:
The severity of the offense (how much over the speed limit you were going)
Age of the driver
Where the speeding occurred (school zones, work zones, etc.)
If there are prior speeding offenses in a given period of time
How much a speeding ticket in California will inevitably cost is hard to nail down. There are so many variables the fine could be different each time. The only thing you can be sure of is that it's going to be expensive.
How Speed Affects the Price of a Speeding Ticket
Let's get to what you came here for - the numbers. Cali is notorious for being one of the worst states in the nation for expensive speeding ticket fines. The faster you go over the speed limit the more the fine will be.
The points below are "standard" prices based on the speed a person was going when they were clocked by a cop.
1-15 mph over the speed limit
Base fee - $35
Total cost - $230+
16-25 mph over the speed limit
Base fee - $70
Total cost - $360+
26+ mph over the speed limit
Base fee - $100
Total cost - $490+
Most of the time police officers won’t cite drivers for going between 1-5 miles per hour over the speed limit, but it is still a possibility. Your best bet is to keep it just below the speed limit so you have a buffer zone.
A Speeding Ticket in California Will Also Cost You Points
Each speeding ticket comes with another cost - points on your drivers license. Getting a speeding ticket will cost you one point on the driving record scoreboard. Point are kind of like strikes in baseball. Get 4 in 12 months, 6 in 24 months or 8 in 36 months and YOU'RE OUT! License, suspended.
Other Costs Related to Speeding Tickets
As you can see from the breakdown above, the state of California doesn’t stop with the base fine for how fast you were going. It makes sure to get a piece of the pie by administering a 20% surcharge to the fine. There's a laundry list of other related fees that get piled on top to push fines well over $200.
And that's just in the public sector fines at the county, city and state level. Your insurance company is likely to dole out related expenses as well. Be prepared for your monthly premium to go up. Speeding is considered a sign that you’re a liability. If you’re receiving a good driver discount that’s out the window the second you get a speeding ticket.
In most cases, your insurance provider will apply a certain percent increase to your monthly payment. That means on top of the few hundred dollars you are already forking over to the state of California, by the end of the year, you'll have given hundreds more to your auto insurance provider.
But the good news is that part is avoidable. You can enroll in California Traffic School in order to keep your regular monthly rate if approved by your provider. Traffic school can be completed online in a relatively short amount of time. You work at your own pace throughout the courses, and at the end, you automatically receive a digital certificate to present to your insurance company. Aceable offers this online traffic school for only $19.
Need to get a drivers license in California? Aceable has a course for that too! The California Drivers Ed online courses cover everything you need to know to ace the written exam and get a license.
*This article was updated on 3/12/2020