How Much Is a 15 Over Speeding Ticket in Virginia?

A 15 over speeding ticket in Virginia costs $141 if you pay it: $90 in fine, because Va. Code § 46.2-878.3 prices prepayable speeding at $6 for every mile per hour, plus $51 in fixed court costs under Va. Code § 16.1-69.48:1. It also carries 4 DMV demerit points and stays on your Virginia driving record for five years.

How much a 15 over speeding ticket costs in Virginia, start to finish

Take the most common version of this charge: 70 mph in a 55 mph zone on a Virginia state primary highway, where Va. Code § 46.2-870 sets the default maximum at 55 mph. Here is the whole case, in order.

1. The stop. The officer records the speed on radar or laser and writes a summons showing the charged speed, the posted limit, the Code section and a court date in the General District Court of the county or city where the stop happened.
2. The charge. Fifteen over is a traffic infraction, not a crime. It sits below the reckless driving threshold, so it is on the Supreme Court of Virginia’s prepayable list.
3. The fine. Fifteen multiplied by $6 is $90.
4. The costs. Subsection D of § 16.1-69.48:1 assesses a fixed fee of $51 in traffic infractions tried in district court, and the fee is assessed on a written guilty plea just as it is after a hearing.
5. The total. $141, payable to the court named on the summons.
6. The conviction. Prepaying is a waiver of trial and a plea of guilty, so the court reports it to the DMV like any other conviction.
7. The points. The DMV assesses 4 demerit points for an overage of 10 to 19 mph. They count against the licence for two years from the date of the offense; the conviction itself stays on the record for five.
8. The insurance. Insurers run their own point systems, separate from the DMV’s, and decide their own surcharges. Over three years this is usually the largest number in the case.

What each overage from 5 to 19 over costs in Virginia

The arithmetic is the same for every ordinary speeding charge, which makes the whole range predictable. Court costs do not scale with speed.

Miles per hour over the limit	Fine at $6 per mph	Court costs	Total	DMV points
5	$30	$51	$81	3
9	$54	$51	$105	3
10	$60	$51	$111	4
12	$72	$51	$123	4
14	$84	$51	$135	4
15	$90	$51	$141	4
16	$96	$51	$147	4
17	$102	$51	$153	4
19	$114	$51	$165	4

Two things follow from the table. The first is that the price gap between 14 and 17 is $18, which is not what most drivers fear. The second is that the points jump from three to four between 9 and 10, and the real cliff arrives at 20.

What changes at 20 over, and at 30

Twenty is not the next row of the table. Under Va. Code § 46.2-862, a person is guilty of reckless driving who drives 20 mph or more over the applicable maximum speed limit, or faster than 85 mph whatever the limit says. That is a Class 1 misdemeanor, and Va. Code § 18.2-11 sets the punishment at confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.

	19 over	20 over
Offense	Traffic infraction	Reckless driving, Class 1 misdemeanor
Can it be prepaid?	Yes	No — a court appearance is required
Money	$114 fine + $51 costs	Fine set by the judge up to $2,500 + $61 costs
Jail exposure	None	Up to 12 months
DMV points	4	6
Years on the DMV record	5	11
Criminal record	No	Yes

So there is no price for a ticket at 30 over, because at 30 over there is no ticket: the summons is a criminal charge with a mandatory court date, and the fine is whatever the judge imposes inside the statutory range. What that case involves is set out under when speeding becomes a crime and in the guide to how the two offenses divide.

One number in between catches interstate drivers. Section 46.2-878.3 adds a further $100 fine for driving faster than 80 mph but below 86 mph on a highway posted at 65 mph. At 84 in a 65 the charge is still a speeding infraction, and the bill is $114 in fine, $100 in surcharge and $51 in costs — $265 — with four points rather than six.

The zones that change the per-mile rate

The $6 figure is the default, not the only rate. The same section requires $7 per mile per hour in a school crossing zone and in a highway work zone, and $8 per mile per hour in a posted residence district, where a flat $200 fine is also set by the residence-district statute and may not be suspended unless the court orders 20 hours of community service. Fifteen over in a school crossing zone is therefore $105 plus costs rather than $90 plus costs. Which zones exist, and what each one is posted at, is covered under the zone limits.

What 15 over really costs over three years

The $141 is the part that arrives with a due date. The rest arrives quietly, and it is usually larger.

Cost	Amount	When
Fine and court costs	$141	Within days, to the court on the summons
Driver improvement clinic, if taken	No more than $100	Optional; removes up to five demerit points
Insurance surcharge	Set by the insurer, not by law	At the next renewal after the conviction is reported
Four demerit points	No dollar figure	Counted against the licence for two years
Conviction on the DMV record	No dollar figure	Five years

The insurance line is the one no page can price for you. Insurers use their own point systems, which are not DMV demerit points, and the DMV notifies an insurer of a conviction only on request — so the surcharge depends on the carrier, the policy and the driver’s history rather than on a published schedule. What is safe to say is that a three-year surcharge on a single policy commonly exceeds the $141 several times over, which is why some drivers spend more than the fine to avoid the conviction.

Who should care more about the four points than the $141

For most drivers with a clean record, four points is an abstraction. For four groups it is not.

• Drivers already carrying points. The DMV sends an advisory letter at 8 demerit points in 12 months and requires a driver improvement clinic within 90 days at 12 points in 12 months; 18 points in 12 months brings a 90-day suspension and six months of probation. A four-point conviction can be the one that crosses a line.
• Drivers under 18. A first demerit-point conviction requires a clinic within 90 days or the licence is suspended until it is completed; a second brings a 90-day suspension; a third brings revocation for a year or until age 18, whichever is longer.
• Commercial licence holders. A Virginia court may not reduce, dismiss or defer a CDL holder’s charge on the strength of a driver improvement clinic, so the usual bargaining chip is unavailable and the stakes at work are higher.
• Out-of-state drivers. Virginia demerit points cannot attach to a licence another state issued, but Virginia reports the conviction to the home state, which applies its own points and surcharges. What that state does is a question for its own DMV.

Voluntarily completing a DMV-approved driver improvement clinic removes up to five demerit points and can be done once every 24 months, which is the one remedy available after the conviction is already entered.

Is the charged speed right?

Since the fine is the overage multiplied by six, every mile per hour is worth $6 and the points threshold sits between two of them. Va. Code § 46.2-882 lists the only devices whose readings count — laser, radar, a microcomputer connected to an odometer cable, an aircraft-borne microcomputer over an interstate, or an authorized photo speed monitoring device — and makes a reading prima facie evidence of the speed rather than conclusive proof.

The same section caps a device’s calibration at six months (12 months for a photo speed monitoring device) and makes a calibration certificate admissible as evidence of what it states. That cuts both ways: a mechanic’s certificate showing that the driver’s own speedometer reads low is admissible on the same footing, and if it drops the charged speed from 15 over to 9, it moves the case from four points to three. The practical steps are on the page about how a calibration is used in court.

Paying it, or not

Prepaying is the cheapest use of a day and the most expensive use of a driving record: it is a guilty plea, the points attach, and the chance of a reduction is gone. Appearing costs a trip to the county where the stop happened and gives the court the option of a lesser disposition or a dismissal. Drivers who are near a DMV points threshold, hold a commercial licence, or are newly licensed are the ones for whom that trade is usually worth making; the decision itself is set out under the DMV thresholds points can cross and prepaying versus appearing.

Nothing above is a prediction about a particular case. The fine schedule is statewide, but what a judge does with a contested charge is not, and a Virginia traffic attorney who appears in that courthouse is the only reliable guide to it.