Virginia Traffic Ticket Guide
What a Virginia traffic summons actually is, what it costs, and what paying it means
What a Virginia traffic ticket costs, which charges can be prepaid, what prepaying admits, and what happens when a fine goes unpaid.
Every page cites the Code of Virginia, links to the official text, and shows the date it was last checked. How these guides are researched.
Your Ticket
What the Virginia summons in your hand is, which charges can be settled without a court appearance, and why a ticket is not a criminal charge.
- Virginia State Traffic Tickets: Your Three Options After a Summons
A Virginia traffic ticket is a summons with a court date: prepay and be convicted, appear and ask for a reduction, or contest it. Some cannot be prepaid.
- The Virginia Prepayable Offenses Information Sheet, and Its Limits
Virginia's prepayable offenses information sheet is the Supreme Court's statewide fine schedule — and six kinds of charge can never appear on it.
- Traffic Infraction: Virginia Calls It Neither Felony nor Misdemeanor
A Virginia traffic infraction is neither a felony nor a misdemeanor (§ 46.2-100). The fine is capped at $250 unless the section names its own figure.
Fines and Payment
What a Virginia traffic fine can legally be, the fixed court costs added to it, how payment works, and what the court does about a fine that is never paid.
- Virginia Traffic Ticket Prices: The Fine Is Only Part One
Most Virginia traffic tickets are capped at $250 by Va. Code § 46.2-113, plus $51 in fixed court costs. Speeding is charged per mile per hour over the limit.
- Pay Fines Online: VA Courts Collect, and Paying Is a Guilty Plea
Pay fines online in VA and you plead guilty: Va. Code § 16.1-69.40:1 gives it the same force as a judgment, and the same DMV points as a trial.
- Virginia Court Fines: Who Sets Them and What If You Cannot Pay
Virginia court fines are set by the judge within a statutory cap, with fixed costs added. An unpaid balance is a debt now — it no longer suspends a licence.
Traffic Laws and Offenses
Where Virginia's traffic laws sit in the Code, how offences are classified and enforced, and what two much-searched charge names really mean.
- Virginia Drivers' Responsibility Law: What It Is and Is Not
Virginia's abusive driver fees were repealed in 2008. The driver responsibility law that still applies is the insurance rule in Va. Code § 46.2-706.
- Improper Control Driving: Virginia Charges Improper Driving Instead
Improper control driving in Virginia is really improper driving, Va. Code § 46.2-869 — a traffic infraction with a fine of no more than $500 and 3 DMV points.
- Where Virginia State Traffic Laws Live, and What They Cost
Virginia's traffic laws are Title 46.2 of the Code. Where a section names no fine, § 46.2-113 caps it at $250, and $51 in court costs is added.
- Primary Traffic Offenses in Virginia, and the Secondary Ones
Virginia's Code names the traffic offenses an officer may not stop you for — seat belts, tint, teen licence rules. Everything else is a primary offense.