A Fairfax County Speeding Ticket: Cost, Points and the Reckless Line

A Fairfax County speeding ticket costs $6 per mile per hour over the posted limit under the statewide prepayment schedule, plus $51 in fixed court costs, and carries 3 to 6 DMV demerit points. Above a line drawn by statute it stops being a ticket at all and becomes a criminal charge you have to appear for.

What a Fairfax County speeding ticket costs

The fine is not set locally. Va. Code § 46.2-878.3 requires the Traffic Infractions and Uniform Fine Schedule adopted by the Supreme Court of Virginia to carry, wherever prepayment is permitted, a fine of $6 per mile per hour in excess of posted speed limits. Two zones cost more: $7 per mile per hour in a school crossing zone (§ 46.2-873) or a highway work zone, and $8 per mile per hour in a posted residence district on top of that section’s own $200 fine. Driving faster than 80 mph but below 86 mph where the limit is 65 adds a further $100.

On top of the fine come court costs, which are statutory and identical across Virginia: $51 on a traffic infraction, $61 on a misdemeanor, with $35 more if a defendant fails to appear and shows no good cause.

So the arithmetic on a routine Fairfax County ticket is the per-mile figure multiplied by the speed over the limit, plus $51. How to pay it, and what paying does to the record, is on the Fairfax County ticket payment page.

What it does to your driving record

Virginia’s DMV assigns demerit points by how far over the limit the driver was, and the points outlast the fine by years.

Speed charged	Demerit points	Years on the DMV record
1-9 mph above the posted limit	3	5
10-19 mph above the posted limit	4	5
20 mph or more above the posted limit, charged as speeding	6	5
Reckless driving by speed	6	11

Prepaying does not avoid any of this. A prepaid ticket is a conviction and the points are assessed exactly as they would be after a trial.

When a Fairfax County speeding ticket is not a ticket

Section 46.2-862 draws the line in one sentence: a person is guilty of reckless driving who drives “(i) at a speed of 20 miles per hour or more in excess of the applicable maximum speed limit or (ii) in excess of 85 miles per hour regardless of the applicable maximum speed limit.”

That second clause catches drivers who were not speeding by very much. On a highway posted at 70, 86 mph is reckless driving even though it is only 16 over, and the driver charged with it is facing a misdemeanor rather than a fine.

Reckless driving is a Class 1 misdemeanor under § 46.2-868, punishable under § 18.2-11 by confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both. It is a crime rather than a traffic infraction — § 18.2-8 puts infractions outside the criminal offenses — it cannot be prepaid, and it requires an appearance on the county’s traffic docket. What happens there is covered on the page for reckless driving by speed in Fairfax.

Camera tickets are a different thing entirely

A photo-speed notice that arrives in the post is not a speeding conviction. Section 46.2-882.1 caps the civil penalty at $100, attaches liability only at 10 mph or more above the posted limit in the monitored zone, and provides that imposing the penalty by mailed summons is not deemed a conviction as an operator, is not made part of the operating record and may not be used for insurance purposes. No demerit points follow.

Two caveats matter. If an officer used the device and handed a summons over in person, the resulting conviction is an ordinary one and does go on the record. And the recipient may request proof of the device’s calibration, which has to be delivered within 10 days.

Contesting one

The Commonwealth has to prove the speed, and the statute that lets it do so also limits it. Under § 46.2-882 a laser, radar or microcomputer reading is prima facie evidence of speed, and a certificate showing the calibration or accuracy of the device is admissible — but “no calibration or testing of any device other than a photo speed monitoring device shall be valid for longer than six months.”

A driver defending a speed charge in Fairfax County therefore has a small number of concrete things to check or bring:

1. The calibration certificate for the officer’s device, and its date.
2. A speedometer calibration from a mechanic, if there is reason to think the car read low.
3. The posted limit at the exact location, and whether a school crossing or work zone was actually in operation.
4. A clean DMV record, which is what a judge looks at before deciding anything about a first offense.

None of these guarantees a result, and a charge the Commonwealth proves is a conviction whatever the driver brings.

Which court, and what to do next

A summons written anywhere in Fairfax County, including in the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton, goes to the Fairfax County General District Court; one written inside the independent City of Fairfax goes to that city’s own court. Which applies is decided by where the offense happened, not by the mailing address on the paperwork, so read the locality line on the summons. Counties may also adopt their own traffic ordinances under § 46.2-1300, so a county ordinance number on the paper is normal and changes nothing about where the case is heard or how it is tried.

If the case goes against you, § 16.1-132 gives ten days to appeal to the Fairfax Circuit Court, and § 16.1-136 makes that appeal a completely new trial rather than a review of the first one. What noting the appeal costs is not fixed by any one section — § 17.1-275 is the circuit clerk’s general fee schedule for recording, process and copies of records, and says nothing about a traffic appeal — so ask the clerk for the figure before you note one. Costs are taxed on a conviction.

Speeding is charged from the same statewide schedule everywhere in Virginia; the same arithmetic in Loudoun County produces the same numbers in front of a different judge.

No page can tell you what a particular judge will do with a particular summons, and a Virginia traffic attorney can read the charge and say what is realistic.