WTDW Podcast | Episode 48: What To Do When… You Are Charged with Reckless Driving.

Reckless Speeding, Reckless Driving, Traffic Ticket, Misdemeanor, DUI, and Criminal Record, and Criminal Charges.

What To Do When… You Are Charged with Reckless Driving.

Follow the What To Do When… Legal Chat Podcast – Proudly Featured On:

• Apple Podcasts – What To Do When | A Dummies Guide to the LegalVerse.
• YouTube – What To Do When… A Dummies Guide to the Legalverse Playlist.
• Google Podcasts – What To Do When… A Dummies Guide to the Legalverse.
• Spotify – What To Do When… A Dummies Guide to the Legalverse Podcast.
• Amazon Music / Audible – What To Do When… A Dummies Guide to the Legalverse Podcast.

WTDW Podcast Home Page – What To Do When… A Dummies Guide to the Legalverse

What To Do When… Intro 00:01
Welcome to What To Do When… A podcast from real lawyers with real perspective, where we explore a variety of legal issues and scenarios. Each week we focus on a new topic and discuss what to do when and if any of these legal scenarios ever happened to you or a loved one. With over 40 years of combined legal experience, our hosts offer their unique perspectives and insights on a range of real life legal situations.

Jackie Critzer 0:29

Hey there, welcome back to the Critzer Cardani podcast here in Richmond, Virginia. I’m Jackie.

Scott Cardani 0:34

I’m Scott, and good to see you. Good morning. What’s on the docket for today, Jackie,

Jackie Critzer 0:39
What to do when you’re charged with reckless driving?

Scott Cardani 0:43
And some of you say they already did reckless? You’re right, we did. But I just see it, you don’t understand how many times I sit in court. And I see this over and over again, I just think it’s such an important topic because and basically what we want to talk about today is there’s two reckless, there’s obviously reckless spy speed, where the cop catches you on his radar over 85. 20 over whatever it is. Usually, in my case, it’s like somebody’s doing 100 in a 70 or something like that, or 80 in a 45. Those are a little different for me, because you have a cop who observed your speed, right? So you have a witness to your reckless driving. Almost every other reckless by behavior, You wrecked or did something else. And you know, a lot of times a cop come up and they’re like, I didn’t have anything else to write him for. So I wrote him for reckless. Well. That’s where I’m talking about because just because you were charged with a reckless doesn’t mean you were reckless. And we talked about this a lot in the first podcast we did on this but reckless, just because you had an accident doesn’t mean you were reckless.

Jackie Critzer 1:42
I went around the corner went off the road in the corner and the curve of the road, you’re likely to get written for reckless. Nobody saw you, no idea what happened, and why you ended up in the ditch in the curve.

Scott Cardani 1:53
Or I recently had a client who went around some emergency vehicles. And, you know, she got written for reckless. There’s two different stories of what happened. You know, somebody said that there were people there, some people said, there were there were cones, they’re not cones there. My whole point is this. And this is why it’s so important. Somebody has to observe you being reckless for you to be reckless. If nobody observed you being reckless, you were not reckless.

Jackie Critzer 2:21
It’s hard to presume that you were reckless just because of the result.

Scott Cardani 2:24
That’s my point. And in so often, I see in court, people walking up and the thing about a reckless driving ticket, it’s not just a traffic, it’s a misdemeanor. So a misdemeanor goes on your criminal record as a crime. So that’s why to me, it’s so important to understand, reckless is not just a traffic ticket. Oh, I just got a traffic ticket. And I watch people all time the welcome court. They welcome Jody, that’s how you plead guilty. And I’m like, what? Reckless Driving so they had an accident. And I’m like, wait a minute, what happened and I want to know the details, because probably they were reckless. They may have been it may be improper driving, it may be failure to obey a sign. It may be all kinds of things, but may not be reckless. So the point is really quick, and we just wanted to get this really quick is make sure if you get charged with reckless driving. Somebody if you’re going to plead guilty, make somebody sure there’s a witness that you did something wrong. The officer showing up 10 minutes or five minutes or even 30 seconds after the accident has no evidence that you did anything wrong. None. The worst thing you do is start talking to the officer and say, oh, yeah, well, I was going at you and I tried to make that corner. And I read because I every day. Remember, I’m not asking you to lie. We don’t ever do that. But you don’t have to incriminate yourself, it’s your right not to incriminate yourself. So the best thing you can do is be quiet. Be polite, be cooperative. The officer says Get out your car, get out of your car. If you feel you’re being harassed or something like that we can take care of those things too. But the point is just be polite, cooperative, and then don’t answer any questions. Well, what happened? I’d rather talk to my lawyer. Before I get into that, sir, I’m sorry, I just not sure I want to talk to somebody about my rights. And he’ll respect that 90% of the police officers I deal with will respect that. They may push you a little bit now you need to tell me what happened. Now I really don’t. So you know, sometimes you have to hold the line. And they’re going to do their job to try to get information but I just really wanted to take a moment. And it’s in a very short podcast for that reason. But when you have a reckless driving other than by speed, but even with speed, your first thing you need to do is contact a lawyer and see what your case is because you are facing a misdemeanor, which is up to 12 months in jail. You could lose your license, you can have a fine up to $2,500 all those things. Do people normally get that? No, it’s usually around a $400 or $500 fine, but still, you’re subjecting yourself to something you don’t even have a clue because you think, Well, I did something wrong. And you may have but that doesn’t mean it was criminal.

Jackie Critzer 4:59
Well, we learned into that sometimes even a reckless driving misdemeanor, and that’s in Virginia, that doesn’t mean it’s reckless driving in North Carolina. Some other jurisdictions may not even recognize reckless driving as a charge. But in Virginia reckless driving, whether by speed or by behavior, regardless of the charge, it is a misdemeanor charge, and is gonna go on your record. And that can impact security clearances, as we’ve learned. And with Virginia being a hot spot for military bases, I think between DC and Virginia Beach, there’s 10, or some kind of installations. Not to mention, there’s Quantico, and there’s some other places. So we see a lot of military folks come in and through Richmond, going up in through DC, you’re down to the beach. A lot of these folks are in New Kent, they get on 64. And they start just cruising down. And I’ve dealt with a lot of typically younger military folks who have who have just been driving a little too fast. But you’ve just got to be mindful that if you’ve got a security clearance, which is not typically your younger military folks, usually the more advanced and more senior ranking officers and other people who are not necessarily in the military who have security clearances that that a misdemeanor can can impact that that so you want to be careful with what you say to the officer. And then also make sure you call an attorney and figure out what makes sense for you, and how do you how do you move your case forward.

Scott Cardani 6:21
And we mentioned this all the time on our podcast, but I’ll mention it one more time. When you’re a young adult. We teach our kids and we preach to our kids all the time. Just be honest. Just be honest. It’s not about being dishonest. They don’t You don’t have to incriminate yourself. So it’s just not giving information that they don’t have the right to have. They don’t have the right to have your information. And I could go on about that for hours. But so be careful. You have a young kid who gets a reckless parents like I just go plead guilty, you know, you did it. And the bottom line is again, that goes on our criminal record. And then when Susie’s interviewing with three other kids, and they pull the criminal records, and they don’t have a criminal record, and she does, nobody’s going to tell me that doesn’t affect them. Because it does, if it’s a close call, they’re gonna have some reason to weed you out. And they’re trying to weed out three people and your two people and you have a criminal record. They don’t it’s gonna hurt you. So it’s really important to me that you don’t just plead guilty because you feel guilty? Or because your mom told you to do that. And young people listen to me. It is okay not to answer the question ‘What happened?’ You can always say, I’d like to speak to a lawyer call us and get some help before you say can I postpone this, I’ll be happy to talk to you after I talk to a lawyer in which when you come to me, I’m saying you’re not going to talk to them. So you may not want to say that. But that’s the bottom line for me, I want you to all know you do not have to give an account. Just because you have an accident, you have no obligation to give an account of how that accident happened. They can try to figure it out. But the bottom line is unless they are witnessed into it, they cannot prove reckless and you shouldn’t be charged with reckless, and you shouldn’t have a criminal record that shows a reckless driving.

Jackie Critzer 7:57
When when Scott brings up the lawyer when you lawyer up when you say I’m not going to talk to you until I talk to my attorney however you phrase that in your own words. The next question is does not automatically make me look guilty. And that is a podcast that’s coming to you soon. That I think is going to address those questions about when you quote lawyer up. And whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea. And what whether that really broadcasts guilt or innocence, and how to navigate the roads when you quote lawyer up.

Scott Cardani 8:28
real quickly. Reckless Driving. You don’t admit it. You don’t give evidence. You don’t incriminate yourself, you get help from a lawyer. Number two, get somebody to talk about your case. I know this law firm Critzer Cardani. There’s really good at it to help really help you out. And number three parents, don’t assume that just because your kid was in a wreck, that they are reckless and make them plead guilty or talk them into pleading guilty. It’s a criminal offense. It goes on your record and it can be one of those little things that may be the straw that broke the camel’s back three years later, and you don’t want that for no reason. So thank you for listening. Hope you enjoyed it.

Jackie Critzer 9:05
Be sure and like and subscribe.

Scott Cardani 9:07
Have a good day.

What To Do When… Outro 9:08

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of What To Do When… For more episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and we encourage you to check archives to listen to previous topics. Tune in next week for a new episode and some fresh perspective from Critzer Cardani.

Need Legal Representation? Contact Critzer Cardani.

We look forward to helping you in this venture and Good Luck!

• Stream and Subscribe to Podcasts Here.
• Submit Questions or Suggest New Podcast Topic Here.