Virginia Reckless Driving Penalties: Jail, Fines and Points

The penalty for reckless driving in Virginia is that of a Class 1 misdemeanor: up to 12 months in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both, under Va. Code § 46.2-868 and § 18.2-11. The court can also suspend your license for 10 days to six months, and the DMV adds 6 demerit points that stay on your record for 11 years. Those are the maximums; what a given driver actually receives depends on the speed, the facts, the record, and the court. What the charge itself is, and how a case gets from a roadside stop to a sentence, is covered in the guide to reckless driving in Virginia.

Virginia reckless driving penalties at a glance

Penalty	What the law allows	Source
Jail	Up to 12 months (no minimum)	§ 46.2-868 A, § 18.2-11
Fine	Up to $2,500 (no minimum, except $250 when a handheld phone was involved)	§ 46.2-868, § 18.2-11
License suspension	10 days to 6 months, at the court’s discretion; restricted license possible	§ 46.2-392
License suspension, speed and specific-act sections	60 days to 6 months, or enrollment in the Intelligent Speed Assistance Program instead	§ 46.2-393
Alcohol safety action program	May be required if the offense appears alcohol- or drug-related	§ 46.2-392
DMV demerit points	6 points, valid for 2 years from the offense date	DMV point schedule
Driving record	Conviction stays on the DMV record for 11 years	DMV point schedule
Criminal record	A misdemeanor conviction in public court records	§ 46.2-868
Felony upgrade	Class 6 felony if driving on a license suspended for a moving violation and the reckless driving caused a death	§ 46.2-868 B

Jail and fines: the Class 1 misdemeanor range

Every reckless driving conviction in Virginia — whether under the general rule of Va. Code § 46.2-852, reckless driving by speed under Va. Code § 46.2-862 (20 mph or more over the limit, or over 85 mph), or one of the other named acts the Code counts as reckless driving — is a Class 1 misdemeanor under § 46.2-868. Section 18.2-11 defines the punishment for that class as confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.

Two things about that range are worth understanding. First, there is no floor: the judge can impose a small fine and nothing else, and often does. Second, a jail sentence can be imposed and then suspended on conditions, which is commonly how the jail terms handed down in these cases work in practice — the days are hanging over the driver rather than served.

The one mandatory figure in the statute is the $250 minimum fine in § 46.2-868 C for a driver who was violating Virginia’s handheld-phone law at the time of the offense. Court costs are added to any fine, and unlike the fine they are fixed by statute rather than left to the judge. Who imposes the fine itself, and what the whole bill comes to, are covered separately.

License suspension

Suspension is not automatic. Va. Code § 46.2-392 says the court may suspend the license of a person convicted of reckless driving for not less than 10 days nor more than six months, and must have the license surrendered if it does. The same section allows a restricted license during the suspension for the purposes the Code lists — driving to and from work, school, and medical care among them — and allows the court to require an alcohol safety action program where it has reason to believe the offense was alcohol- or drug-related, in which case the license is not reinstated until the program is completed.

A nonresident cannot have a Virginia license suspended, but the court can order that they not drive in Virginia for the same 10-day-to-six-month period. Their home state then decides what to do with the conviction under its own law.

Where the conviction is under one of the speed or specific-act sections — §§ 46.2-853 through 46.2-864, which includes reckless driving by speed — a second statute applies instead. Va. Code § 46.2-393 sets a longer floor: not less than 60 days nor more than six months. Subsection C of the same section, added by a 2025 amendment, gives the court an alternative it did not have before. On a conviction under § 46.2-861 or § 46.2-862 it may, for good cause shown, require enrollment in the Intelligent Speed Assistance Program — a speed-limiting device fitted to the vehicle — for that same 60-day-to-six-month period rather than taking the license at all. Above 100 mph the enrollment stops being optional: the statute says the court shall order it unless it has suspended the license instead. Neither a restricted permit nor the program allows commercial driving. This is the newest penalty in Virginia reckless driving law, and it sits with the rest of what changed in Virginia’s reckless driving laws.

DMV points and your driving record

The DMV assesses 6 demerit points for any reckless driving conviction, the highest tier on Virginia’s schedule. The points themselves count against you for two years from the date of the offense; the conviction stays on your driving record for 11 years. For comparison, improper driving carries 3 points for three years, and speeding 20 mph or more over the limit charged as a speeding infraction carries 6 points for five years.

Insurance is not a court penalty, but it is usually the most expensive consequence over time. Insurers use their own point systems, and a misdemeanor conviction on the record generally moves premiums more than an infraction would. How much is the insurer’s decision.

The criminal record

Because it is a misdemeanor rather than an infraction, a reckless driving conviction is a criminal conviction. It appears in the general district court’s public case records, which are searchable online and are what most commercial background-check companies pull, and it has to be disclosed on forms that ask about misdemeanor convictions. It stays there unless it is later sealed under Virginia’s record-sealing law — a possibility to check with a lawyer, not a guarantee. One nuance: reckless driving is not on the list of offenses reported with fingerprints to the Virginia State Police, and drivers released on a summons are not fingerprinted, so it usually does not appear on a State Police criminal history check. The DMV record and the court record are where it lives.

What penalty is typical?

Treat the following as the general pattern in Virginia’s general district courts, not as a prediction for any particular case.

• A first offense at a modest speed over the threshold, clean record, no crash: commonly a fine only, and frequently reduced to improper driving or a speeding infraction — especially when the driver has completed a driver improvement clinic and can show a speedometer calibration and a clean record.
• Speeds around 90 mph and up, or a crash: a reckless conviction becomes more likely; suspension and short jail terms enter the picture, particularly past 100 mph.
• Alcohol suspected, endangered passengers, or a prior record: a reckless conviction is likely, and jail and suspension are realistic.

The judge decides all of this at the hearing. Reckless driving cannot be prepaid; under Va. Code § 46.2-936 the officer issues a summons with a court date at least five days out, and you must appear in the general district court of the county or city where you were stopped (in many courts, a lawyer may appear for you). The hearing is before a judge without a jury; the officer testifies, you or your lawyer may present evidence, and the judge rules and sentences the same day. A conviction can be appealed to the circuit court within ten days for a completely new trial.

The reduced charge: improper driving

The most common way the penalty gets smaller is not leniency within the reckless driving range but a different charge. Va. Code § 46.2-869 lets the judge, where the degree of culpability is slight, find the defendant guilty of improper driving instead of reckless driving, and lets the prosecutor reduce the charge at any time before the court decides. Improper driving is a traffic infraction: a fine of not more than $500, 3 points, three years on the DMV record, no jail exposure, and no criminal conviction.

	Reckless driving	Improper driving
Offense type	Class 1 misdemeanor	Traffic infraction
Maximum fine	$2,500	$500
Jail	Up to 12 months	None
License suspension	Up to 6 months	None under § 46.2-392
DMV points / years on record	6 / 11	3 / 3
Criminal record	Yes	No

When reckless driving becomes a felony

Section 46.2-868 B upgrades the charge to a Class 6 felony in one narrow situation: the driver was driving without a valid license because of a suspension or revocation for a moving violation, and the reckless driving was the sole and proximate cause of another person’s death. Outside that situation, reckless driving in Virginia is a misdemeanor, however high the speed. A separate section of the same article makes racing that seriously injures or kills a bystander a felony, and eluding police is its own offense with its own felony tier.

Reckless driving is not “reckless handling of a firearm”

Searches for “reckless” penalties in Virginia sometimes land on Va. Code § 18.2-56.1, reckless handling of a firearm. That is a criminal-law offense unrelated to driving — also a Class 1 misdemeanor in its basic form, but with different aggravated versions and possible loss of hunting privileges. If your summons cites an 18.2 section rather than a 46.2 section, you are facing a criminal charge rather than a traffic one.

What to do with this information

Read the summons for the section charged and the speed. Before the court date, complete a DMV-approved driver improvement clinic, get a speedometer calibration if speed is the issue, and print your driving record — these are what commonly move a judge toward improper driving. If the speed was well past the threshold, there was a crash, or you have a record, talk to a Virginia traffic attorney about the tendencies of the specific court. For the money side, see how much a reckless driving ticket costs; for the speed thresholds, see reckless driving by speed; and for what usually happens the first time, see reckless driving as a first offense.