If you have a car, maybe you got the most sensible model available. Perhaps you bought a family sedan, a minivan, or something you’ll mostly use when hauling groceries or picking the kids up from soccer practice. This vehicle might look and feel utilitarian, and you may think that’s fine for your situation.
On the other hand, perhaps you bought something fast and flashy. Maybe you know that it can go from zero to sixty in a couple of seconds, and you feel like you should try it out. When you hop behind the wheel, you may feel like you’re in a Fast and Furious movie.
If you test your car and see whether it can hit the top speed that the speedometer indicates, you can get into some serious trouble. Let’s talk about that right now.
Speeding
If you speed while in your car, maybe you won’t face any serious consequences. You might hit the gas while on the highway and exceed 100 miles per hour without any other cars around. You may stay in control and handle the impressive speed without crashing.
You may also not see any cops around. If so, you’re lucky. You tested your luck and got away with some reckless behavior.
Speeding often causes car crashes, though. When it does, you might need a property damage lawyer who can tell you your options. Maybe you hit a fire hydrant, a telephone pole, or some other public property.
In that situation, you must figure out what you owe the city or township where the crash occurred. You might owe them some serious money, and you may also face a fine on top of the property damage you caused.
You might face a license suspension or even some jail time. If you leave the scene, you will almost always get some jail time, a fine, and likely community service as well.
What About If You Hit Another Car?
If you hit another car, you will definitely have some additional headaches. If you struck this other vehicle while speeding, you might not face some very serious consequences if you went five miles over the speed limit.
If you exceeded the speed limit by thirty miles per hour while on a residential street, though, the cops and the court system won’t like that very much. A judge might use you as an example. They may charge you the maximum fine they can.
They might give you several months or a couple of years in jail. If you caused any injuries through your reckless actions, you may even get a longer jail sentence.
What if You Hit Someone’s Private Property?
If you hit someone’s private property and caused some damage, but you didn’t injure anyone, you might breathe a sigh of relief. You behaved recklessly, but you caused no bloodshed.
You still might face both criminal and civil charges. The criminal charges might include reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Depending on what you say when the judge questions you, you might pay a large fine, and you may get a little jail time.
You must also pay the individual or family whose property you damaged. Maybe you lost control, went up on the curb, and smashed through someone’s fence. Perhaps you went flying through their front yard, and your car ended up in their living room. Maybe you took out a wall, the TV, some artwork, etc.
The family or individual can sue you and get the money that should cover replacing those items. You might contest the matter in court, but that’s usually an open-and-shut case. It’s not like you can say the person or family did anything wrong. You caused the accident beyond any doubt.
The Aftermath
If you feel you must test a car’s limits, you should reconsider. If you cause some property damage or injuries, then you had a major error in judgment.
When the judge asks you what you thought or why you acted that way, you had better have a good reason. Telling them you wanted to test your car’s speed will not do you any favors.
In reality, you should never test a car’s capabilities like that for any reason. Reckless driving that causes serious property damage sounds pretty bad, but anytime that is all you caused, count yourself lucky. You could easily kill someone that way.
Hopefully, you will learn this lesson, and you will never try anything like that again.
