Tips on How to Fight a Traffic Ticket for Speeding - CA Vehicle Code § 22349 (b)

If you drive regularly in California it is likely that at some point you will find yourself  with a speeding ticket.  One such ticket is found in Vehicle Code section 22349, subdivision  (b). This short article discusses some potential defenses, the methods you may use to contest the ticket, and the amount of fine you will be asked to pay if you do not contest the ticket and are found guilty of the violation. 

VC 22349 (b) 

Vehicle Code section 22349, subdivision (b) states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person may drive a vehicle upon a two-lane, undivided highway at a speed greater than 55 miles per hour unless that highway, or portion thereof, has been posted for a higher speed by the Department of Transportation or appropriate local agency upon the basis of an engineering and traffic survey. For purposes of this subdivision, the following
apply:

   (1) A two-lane, undivided highway is a highway with not more than
one through lane of travel in each direction.
   (2) Passing lanes may not be considered when determining the
number of through lanes.
   (c) It is the intent of the Legislature that there be reasonable
signing on affected two-lane, undivided highways described in
subdivision (b) in continuing the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit,
including placing signs at county boundaries to the extent possible,
and at other appropriate locations.

Tips to Fight a Speeding Ticket 

Here are some tips if you get a ticket for violating Vehicle Code section 22349, subdivision (b).

You can contest the ticket by requesting a court trial or by submitting a trial by declaration. If you request a court trial. and the officer does not appear for your court appearance, your  case will likely be dismissed.  Also, if you challenge the ticket by written declaration, as stamped on the back of your ticket, the ticket will likely be dismissed if the officer does not submit his or her declaration to the court on time and you have adequately contested the ticket in your written declaration. Also, if  you contest the ticket by asking for a court trial and you appear in court but the officer does not appear, your speeding ticket will likely be dismissed. That is why I always recommend a person to contest the ticket - you could get lucky and not have a trial or a ticket to pay. 

But if you fight the ticket by going to court and the officer appears in court, you will need to be able to challenge the officer’s calculation of your speed or establish that you were not the driver of the car that the officer clocked speeding or another defect in the ticket. 

 Motorcycle officers often appear in court on the scheduled date, so you may want to delay your trial date to the winter holidays or summer vacation time when many people schedule vacations or at least to a different date than the one scheduled on the ticket.

Challenging the officer’s calculation of your speed can be complicated, so we recommend that you get Fight Your Ticket in California to learn about the methods used to challenge the officer’s calculation of your speed. Also, Beat Your Ticket if you are in another state is also good. Also, you can hire an experienced traffic ticket attorney to help you fight this type of ticket.  Make certain you ask the attorney about  his or her experience challenging an officer’s calculation of speed by pacing, as well as by radar and laser devices.

But here are some basic tips if you want to fight this ticket by yourself.  If the officer relied on “pacing,” which means that  the officer was following your car and using his or her speedometer to calculate your speed, you can cross-examine the officer about how long the officer was following your vehicle.  If you know the officer was only following your vehicle for a short distance, and the officer admits to this, you can try to convince the traffic court judge that the officer’s speed was faster than your speed because the officer had to be to driving faster to catch up to your vehicle; thus, the speed the officer calculated was likely higher than the speed you were traveling and your ticket should be dismissed.

In United States v. Sowards (“Sowards”)  (4th Cir. 2012) 690 F.3d 583.  the Fourth District Court explains: "[T]he reasonableness of an officer's visual speed estimate depends, in the first instance, on whether a vehicle's speed is estimated to be in significant excess or slight excess of the legal speed limit. If slight, then additional indicia of reliability are necessary to support the reasonableness of the officer's visual estimate." In Sowards, the court found an officer's visual estimation that a car was traveling 75 m.p.h. in a 70 m.p.h. zone to be a "slight excess" requiring additional indicia of reliability. A California Court of Appeal adopted the reasoning of Soward in People v. Nice (“Nice”), Sixth District Court of Appeal, Case No.  H041847, May 26, 2016.  In Nice, a police officer estimated that a vehicle was traveling from 10 to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit of 25 m.p.h. and the officer stopped the vehicle for speeding, but the court of appeal found that no corroboration was needed.  Thus, if the traffic ticket in your case is closer to Soward than Nice, you can argue that corroboration of the officer's estimate of your speed is needed to find you guilty of the traffic violation.   

If the ticket is from an aircraft patrol vehicle, then both the aircraft patrol officer and the patrol unit that gave you the ticket needs to be in court to testify about how your speed was calculated if the officer did not independently pace your car and calculate your speed. Also, an aircraft operator may not be able to remember your particular vehicle and likely did not obtain your license plate information from the air.  You can ask that the traffic officer who issued your ticket to stand outside the courtroom while you question the aircraft operator about the details of your stop, such as the color of your vehicle, the license plate number, the make/model of the vehicle, etc.  It is possible that the aircraft operator may not remember these details and you could establish that there is insufficient evidence to convict you of speeding.

You can also try to challenge a radar reading or laser detector reading, but that is a more complicated endeavor.  We recommend that you read about how to do this in Fight your Ticket or Beat Your Ticket listed below.  These books explain how to cross-examine an officer and establish that a radar reading or laser reading may not have been accurate.  In general, you will want to show that the officer was not adequately trained to read the device and/or something interfered with the reading, usually another vehicle.

In general, a speed trap defense does not apply when you are accused of going over the maximum speed limit on a highway.

 Vehicle Code 22349 (b) fine cost

The penalty for this violation often depends on how much over the speed limit the citation claims you were speeding. The base fine for this violation is $35 if the citation claims you were traveling 1-25 miles per hour over 65.  But the base fine increases to $70 if the citation claims you were traveling 26 or more miles per hour over the 65 miles per hour speed limit. But that is the base fine and in California, penalty assessments are added to ticket infractions.

Penalty assessments vary depending on how fast you are claimed to have been going and which county you are in.   If you were going 1-15 miles over the speed limit, the fine with penalty assessments will be about $238, sometimes more, sometimes less, in 2016.  If the citation claims you were traveling 16-25 miles over 65, the fine with penalty assessments will be about $367.  If the citation claims you were traveling 26 miles or more over 65 mph, the fine with penalty assessments will be about $490.

In addition to the fine you will be required to pay, if you are found guilty of this traffic violation,  the DMV will add at least one penalty point to your driving record and this could cause your insurance rates to go up if you do not qualify for and attend traffic school. In general, you are eligible to attend traffic school if you have not attended a traffic school within the last 18 months. 

Good luck.  I hope this information helps you to make an informed decision on how to handle your traffic ticket.

copyright © 2016 Christine Esser

The information contained here is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for legal counsel. Online readers should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Information on this blog is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship between you and Christine Esser. An attorney- client relationship is only established when a written retainer has been signed.


Disclosure; If you click on the Amazon link below you will be directed to the Amazon website.  This short blog post may not contain all the information you would want to be able to fight a traffic ticket successfully.  If you are in California, for more information, we recommend Fight Your Ticket and Win -California.  If you are not in California, we recommend, Beat Your Ticket.  Both can be obtained from Amazon by clicking on the links below. We have not received anything from the author or publisher for recommending these books. Good luck.

Last updated on February 10, 2016