Criminal speeding in Arizona is a Class 3 misdemeanor under ARS § 28-701.02. Three types of criminal speed: 35 mph or more approaching a school crossing, more than 20 mph over the posted limit, or more than 85 mph anywhere else. The statutory maximum is 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. In practice, jail is uncommon for clean-record cases handled by counsel.
Most online writing on this topic does one of two things. It dismisses criminal speeding as just a speeding ticket. Or it recites the statutory maximum as if every defendant is headed to jail. Neither is honest. I’ve handled this conversation with thousands of clients, and the realistic outcome sits in between, much closer to a manageable result than the citation suggests.
This article walks through what criminal speeding actually is in Arizona, which court will hear your case, whether you have to come back to Arizona if you live out of state, and what defense strategies actually work. It also covers the consequences most clients do not see coming until after the conviction.
What Counts as Criminal Speeding in Arizona
About half of all U.S. jurisdictions can send a driver to jail for speeding alone. NHTSA’s most recent state-by-state survey counted 24 of 51 jurisdictions (including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) that authorize jail time as a sanction for speed law violations. Arizona is one of them, and one of the more specific. The statute names three exact thresholds that turn a speeding citation into a criminal misdemeanor, no proof of recklessness required.
ARS § 28-701.02 lists those three types of criminal speed:
- Exceeding 35 mph while approaching a posted school crossing.
- Exceeding the posted speed limit by more than 20 mph.
- Exceeding 85 mph in any other location.
For a deeper look at how each subsection applies in practice, see Salwin’s detailed analysis of ARS § 28-701.02.
The “more than 20 mph” language matters. It means the threshold fires at 21 mph over, not 20 mph over. A driver doing exactly 20 mph over the posted limit has not committed criminal speeding under the statute, although they have committed civil speeding.
A practical note about the 85-mph rule: officers rarely cite it on its own. By the time someone is doing 85 mph on a typical Arizona road, they are usually also 20 mph or more over the posted limit, which makes the 20-over rule easier to charge. The 85-mph subsection mostly comes up on the rural freeways that post a 75-mph limit, where a driver doing 86 to 95 mph is more than 85 but only 11 to 20 over.
A lot of out-of-state drivers tell me their home state does not have anything like this. I tell them the same thing every time. Welcome to Arizona. We have criminal speed.
Class 3 Misdemeanor: What That Actually Means
Class 3 is the lowest misdemeanor tier in Arizona. It is still a real criminal charge. A conviction creates a criminal record, appears on background checks, and stays on the public record until it is sealed.
Some people want to talk about whether it is fair to make speeding a crime. That is a real question, but it is not a question a defense attorney can answer in a way that changes your case. The legislature wrote the law. The judge does not care whether the law is fair. The prosecutor does not care. The job is to work with the world the legislature created and get the best outcome possible within it.
That is also why getting the legal framework right matters. The statute classifies the offense as a misdemeanor, not an infraction. See ARS § 13-707 for the misdemeanor sentencing rules. Treating a criminal speeding citation like a civil traffic ticket, which is what most online content does, leads people to make decisions that hurt them.
What the Penalty Section Actually Looks Like in Practice
The statutory ceiling is 30 days in jail under ARS § 13-707(A)(3) and a fine of up to $500 under ARS § 13-802(C). Surcharges typically add to the fine. That is the legal worst case.
The realistic outcome sits in three tiers:
Speed itself is the single biggest factor. Driving 25 over in a rural area on a clean record almost never produces jail. Driving over 100, especially over 130, changes the conversation. That is the speed range where some courts will impose a day or two of jail even for a first offense. The location matters too. A school zone or a busy residential area pulls the penalty range up. An empty stretch of state highway pulls it down.
In the majority of criminal speeding cases I handle, the result is either dismissal, reduction to civil, or, in harder cases, a plea negotiated to guarantee no jail.
Which Court Will Hear Your Case
Justice courts and city or municipal courts handle criminal speeding in Arizona. Both are limited-jurisdiction courts that handle misdemeanors. Which one you appear in depends on where the citation was issued.
Traffic cases dominate the docket at this level. According to the Arizona Supreme Court’s 2025 Judicial Data Report, civil and criminal traffic filings made up more than half of all justice court cases and 70.5 percent of all municipal court cases in fiscal year 2025. Statewide, those two court systems together processed 1,583,649 filings that year.
Citations issued on state highways, including Interstates 10, 17, and 40, almost always route to a justice court. That is the jurisdictional rule under ARS § 22-301. Each justice court covers a specific precinct, so the relevant court depends on where the stop occurred. A stop near Buckeye routes to a different justice court than a stop in north Scottsdale. Maricopa County’s justice courts and municipal courts together handle more filings than any other county in the state, by a wide margin.
Citations issued on city surface streets route to the relevant city court or municipal court. City court and municipal court are the same thing. Different cities just use different names for the same kind of court.
In rare cases, a criminal speeding charge ends up in superior court. That is unusual and typically only happens when other charges are filed alongside it.
Do You Have to Appear in Person?
If you do not have an attorney, yes. Most Arizona courts require physical appearance at criminal speeding hearings, and they routinely deny requests to appear telephonically. Some courts allow a virtual appearance, but only after a written request, and only at the judge’s discretion. The default assumption is that the defendant will be in the courtroom.
With an attorney, the rule is different. Once defense counsel files a notice of appearance, the lawyer can appear on the defendant’s behalf. Under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 9.1, a misdemeanor defendant represented by counsel can waive personal appearance at most stages of the proceeding. Almost every Arizona court allows that waiver, and in practice it happens routinely.
This is the single most practical reason out-of-state drivers retain Arizona counsel. The attorney handles the court date. The client never has to come back to Arizona. The case resolves remotely.
What Actually Happens in Most Cases
There are two primary legal strategies a defense attorney uses in a criminal speeding case. Both aim at the same result: keeping the criminal conviction off the record.
Strategy one is plea negotiation with the prosecutor. The goal is a plea agreement that reduces the charge from a criminal speeding violation to a civil speeding violation. The defendant pays a civil fine and the criminal charge goes away. Whether that strategy works depends on the speed, the driver’s record, the location of the stop, and the prosecutor’s office. Some prosecutors operate under strict office policies that limit civil-reduction offers for higher speeds. Others, particularly seasoned city prosecutors, have more discretion.
Strategy two is defensive driving school, governed by ARS § 28-3392. For a civil traffic violation, defensive driving school works as a matter of course. If the driver has not taken the class in the past 12 months, they qualify, take it, and the violation gets dismissed.
Criminal speeding works differently. The 12-month eligibility rule still applies, but for a criminal charge, the judge has to grant the request. It is discretionary, not automatic. That is the distinction most people do not know about until they get to court.
There is a procedural wrinkle that matters. Some Arizona courts require the defendant to enter a guilty plea first, then make the defensive driving school request at sentencing. If the judge denies the request, the defendant is already convicted. That is a real risk, and it is one of the situational decisions I work through with clients case by case. A 25-over stop in a rural area with a clean record is a different calculation than a 50-over stop near a school zone.
For harder cases where reduction or dismissal is not realistic, there is still a third outcome worth pursuing: a plea that locks in no jail. The conviction stays, but the penalty is contained.
What Moves the Needle in a Criminal Speeding Case
Three factors do most of the work in a criminal speeding case: the speed, the driver’s record, and the location of the stop.
Speed is the biggest factor. The closer the speed is to the statutory threshold, the more flexibility everyone has. Twenty-five over on a clean record, in an unpopulated area, is a different case than 50 over near a school. Driving over 100 mph triggers a much harder conversation in most courts.
The driving record matters next. A driver with no tickets in the past 20 years gets a different read than someone with a recent history of moving violations. Prosecutors, even constrained ones, weigh the record. So do judges at sentencing.
Location is the third factor. A relatively undeveloped stretch of road is different from a two-lane street through a residential area, and a residential area is different from a school zone. Defense attorneys sometimes pull up Google Street View to argue location context, particularly when a citation was issued in an area that reads more rural than the prosecutor assumed.
Prosecutor office culture also matters, and it varies more than people expect. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which handles criminal speeding cases issued on highways in Maricopa County, generally takes a harder line on civil reductions than most city prosecutor offices. Older city prosecutors, including some who have worked at the same office for 20 or 30 years, often have more discretion and a more realistic posture. Where the case lives changes what is possible.
Personal context matters less to prosecutors than people expect, and more to judges. A prosecutor mostly looks at the facts and asks what they can prove. A judge weighs the human in front of them when sentencing.
What Actually Goes on Your Record
A criminal speeding conviction is a criminal conviction. It goes on the public record. It shows on background checks. It adds points to the Arizona driving record (up to three points for speeding, with eight or more points in a 12-month period triggering mandatory traffic school or license suspension), and depending on the home state, it may add points there too.
The conviction also reaches the insurance carrier. Quadrant Information Services data published by Bankrate in 2024 puts the average full-coverage auto insurance premium in Arizona at $2,547 per year for a driver with a clean record, and $3,177 per year for a driver with a speeding ticket. That is a 25 percent average increase, or roughly $630 more per year. Most carriers continue to apply the surcharge for three to five years after the conviction. The total insurance impact of a single ticket, before any fine or fees, runs between $1,890 and $3,150.
That is the immediate consequence. The longer-term picture on the criminal record itself is materially better than most people realize, because of a relatively new statute.
Under ARS § 13-911, which took effect January 1, 2023, most Class 3 misdemeanor convictions, including criminal speeding, are eligible for sealing two years after the defendant completes the sentence. For criminal speeding, sentence completion usually means paying the fine. The court will grant the petition to seal if granting it is in the best interests of the petitioner and the public’s safety.
Sealing is meaningfully stronger than the older “set-aside” remedy under § 13-905. A set-aside removes the judgment of guilt but does not seal the record from the public. A seal removes the conviction from public view. Most articles online still describe only set-aside, because they were written before the 2023 law. The seal is the better relief for most defendants who do not avoid conviction in the first place.
Special Situations: CDL Holders and Out-of-State Drivers
Two categories of driver face different stakes than the typical Arizona resident.
Commercial driver’s license holders. Federal regulations treat speeding 15 mph or more over the posted limit as a “serious traffic violation,” whether the conviction happens in a commercial vehicle or in a personal vehicle. The threshold is set under 49 CFR § 383.51, Table 2.
Every Arizona criminal speeding conviction fires above that 15-mph threshold by definition. So every Arizona criminal speeding conviction counts as a serious traffic violation under federal law for any driver with a CDL.
The disqualification consequences accumulate. Two serious traffic violations in three years triggers a mandatory 60-day federal disqualification of the CDL. Three in three years triggers 120 days. These disqualifications are not discretionary, and they apply regardless of whether the conviction happened in a commercial vehicle or in the driver’s personal car.
For a CDL holder, retaining counsel on a criminal speeding case is not a close call. It is the same decision a small business owner makes about insuring their business. The downside risk to the license is the livelihood.
Out-of-state drivers passing through Arizona. Most criminal speeding cases I handle for out-of-state clients come from drivers cited on I-10, I-17, or I-40 while passing through Arizona on a road trip. The Grand Canyon to Las Vegas corridor produces a lot of these.
Two practical realities apply. First, with Arizona counsel, the out-of-state defendant typically does not return to Arizona. The attorney handles the court date, files the necessary motions, and resolves the case without the defendant present.
Second, Arizona reports the conviction to the home state. Arizona is a member of the Driver License Compact under ARS § 28-1851, an interstate agreement among most U.S. states. The Arizona Motor Vehicle Division shares conviction information with the home state’s licensing authority. The home state then applies its own rules, which sometimes treat the conviction more harshly and sometimes more leniently than Arizona would. Insurance premiums, by contrast, are decided by the insurer, and a criminal conviction can affect them regardless of which state’s license the driver holds.
For both groups, the takeaway is the same. The conviction follows you home. The case is best resolved without one.
What Hurts Your Case Before You Hire an Attorney
A few common moves hurt criminal speeding cases more than they help.
Do not call the prosecutor. Anything you say can be used against you. The court usually will not use it. The prosecutor often will. Conversations meant to explain or apologize tend to become evidence later.
Do not send written explanations to the court. Same reason. Letters become exhibits.
Do not try to negotiate the plea yourself. This one is the most expensive. Once a prosecutor has either denied an informal request or made a weak offer, that becomes the anchor for any later negotiation. Renegotiating from that position is harder than starting fresh. Defense attorneys can change it, but the conversation is more difficult than one that opens cleanly.
The faster you stop trying to solve the case yourself, the more room there is to actually solve it.
What to Do in the First 30 Days
A criminal speeding citation triggers a court date within roughly 30 days. The right first move is a consultation with an Arizona criminal defense attorney who handles these cases regularly. If this is your first criminal speeding citation, our first-time criminal speeding ticket guide walks through what to expect from arrest through arraignment.
When I do an initial consult on a criminal speeding case, I ask four questions in the first few minutes. Which court did the citation say to report to? What speed did the officer record? What was the posted speed limit? What does the driver’s record look like?
With those four pieces of information, I can usually map the realistic range of outcomes in seven minutes. Not a guarantee. A range. Best case, realistic worst case, and the statutory legal max. From there, the conversation is about which strategy to use, what the local prosecutor’s posture is, and what the trade-offs are.
I have done this conversation thousands of times. It is the same conversation in the same shape, with different facts. If you have just received a criminal speeding citation in Arizona and you want to know what the realistic range looks like for your situation, call. Bring the citation, the speed, the posted limit, and a quick honest read on your driving record. The rest of the conversation moves from there.