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You were hit by a driver who was going way too fast. Maybe they were cited at the scene. Maybe a witness said they were “flying.” Either way, you’re hurt, and you want to know what that speed actually means for your case. Here’s the short version: in a speeding accidents Phoenix lawyer search, what you really need is someone who can turn that speed into evidence, because in Arizona, speed isn’t just a cause of the crash. It’s a legal lever. Done right, it can shift fault, raise damages, and in some cases open the door to punitive claims. This article walks through how that works, what evidence has to be preserved fast, and how our Phoenix car accident attorney team approaches these cases.
Arizona handles speed in two layers, and the difference matters for your case value.
Under A.R.S. § 28-701, a driver in Arizona cannot drive at a speed “greater than is reasonable and prudent” for the conditions. That’s the catch-all. It applies on top of every posted speed limit. So a driver going 45 in a 45 zone can still be cited and held liable if it was raining, traffic was stopped ahead, or visibility was poor. Posted limits are a floor, not a ceiling on liability.
The second layer is criminal speeding under A.R.S. § 28-701.02. This is a class 3 misdemeanor, not just a civil traffic ticket. It triggers when a driver does any of the following:
That distinction matters. A civil speeding citation is strong evidence. A criminal speeding charge is a different conversation entirely, both with the adjuster and (if needed) at trial.
Three things change when speed is involved.
Injury severity goes up sharply. IIHS crash testing shows occupants can be injured even at 10 mph impact speeds, and injury severity rises steeply above 30 mph. Doubling speed roughly quadruples the energy involved in the crash. That means more serious injuries, more medical bills, longer recovery, and bigger non-economic damages.
Damages categories expand. A low-speed fender bender often ends with property damage and a few PT visits. A high-speed crash often involves broken bones, surgery, traumatic brain injury, and lost income that stretches months. That changes both your economic damages (medical bills, future medical care, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage) and your non-economic damages (pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life). Non-economic damages tend to scale with injury severity, which is why high-speed crashes often produce significantly larger overall claims.
Punitive exposure becomes real. At ordinary negligence, punitive damages are off the table. At extreme speed, especially with other aggravating facts, they become viable. More on that below.
This is where cases are won or lost. Speed evidence degrades fast. If you wait three weeks to call a lawyer, half of it is already gone.
What we look for in the first days after a Phoenix speeding crash:
This evidence list is the reason calling an attorney before talking to the insurance company matters. The adjuster won’t preserve evidence for you. They might not even tell you it exists.
Here’s where the legal mechanics get useful.
When a driver is cited for speeding and that speeding causes the crash, Arizona courts treat it as negligence per se. In plain English: the speeding citation establishes that the driver breached the duty of care. You don’t have to argue about whether their conduct was reasonable. The statute already says it wasn’t.
That changes the adjuster’s leverage. In a normal disputed-fault case, the adjuster can argue about who did what. In a speeding case with a citation, breach of duty is essentially conceded. The fight shifts to causation and damages, which favors you.
But adjusters don’t roll over. They pivot. Their next move in a speeding case is almost always to try to assign some percentage of fault to you. That matters in Arizona because of how comparative fault works in Arizona. Under A.R.S. § 12-2505, Arizona is a pure comparative negligence state. Your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover even if you’re 99% at fault. The catch: every percentage point the adjuster pins on you reduces your check.
Common adjuster moves in speeding cases:
None of those automatically reduce your fault. They’re negotiating positions. The job of your attorney is to push back with the actual evidence, not concede percentages to make the file move faster.
Most negligence cases in Arizona do not support punitive damages. To get them, the Arizona Supreme Court (Linthicum v. Nationwide Life Insurance) requires evidence of an “evil mind”, meaning conscious disregard for the substantial risk that the conduct creates to the rights or safety of others. Ordinary carelessness isn’t enough. Even gross negligence by itself isn’t always enough.
Speeding cases can cross that line. The fact patterns we see open the door:
Punitives matter because they’re not capped by ordinary policy limits and they’re not reduced by your comparative fault percentage. They sit on top. That changes settlement dynamics, especially when the at-fault driver has assets beyond their insurance.
The injury pattern at 70 mph looks nothing like the pattern at 25 mph. What we see most often:
Insurance adjusters know the difference between a soft-tissue claim and a polytrauma claim. They reserve the file accordingly. Documenting the full injury picture, including future medical needs and lost earning capacity, is the whole game on damages.
Cyclists face even greater injury risk at high speeds, and our Phoenix Bicycle Accident Lawyer page covers how those crash dynamics affect claims involving bikes.
ADOT crash data and what we see in our own caseload point to a few hotspots:
If your crash happened in one of these zones, there’s usually freeway camera footage worth pulling and witness density worth working.
Practical, not abstract. Here’s the actual list:
A fuller checklist is here: what to do after a car accident.
Under A.R.S. § 12-542, you have exactly 2 years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit in Arizona. Miss the deadline and your claim is gone, regardless of how clear the liability is. There are narrow exceptions (minors, incapacity, claims against government entities have their own shorter notice rules), but you should never plan around them. More detail on Arizona’s 2-year deadline.
Two years sounds like a lot. It isn’t. By the time you finish treatment, calculate future medical needs, demand, negotiate, and prepare to file, that window closes faster than people expect.
For a broader overview of how Arizona injury claims work, the Arizona Personal Injury Law Guide covers the key rules and procedures in one place.
When a speeding crash lands on our desk, the first 30 days look like this:
Jared handles these cases personally. You’re not getting handed off to a paralegal pipeline. That matters in a fact-intensive case where the difference between a fair settlement and a low one is in the details.
No, but it gets you most of the way on liability. A citation establishes negligence per se, meaning breach of duty is essentially settled. You still have to prove causation (the speed caused the crash) and damages (the extent of your injuries). The fight usually shifts to those two pieces.
You can still recover. Arizona is a pure comparative negligence state, so your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault but you aren’t barred from recovery even if you’re substantially at fault. Whether your speed actually contributed to the crash is a separate question from whether you were technically over the limit.
It depends on injury severity, treatment history, fault proof, available insurance, and how well economic and non-economic damages are documented. Speeding cases tend to produce larger claims than low-speed crashes because injuries are usually more serious. Any specific number anyone gives you before reviewing the facts is a guess.
That’s a meaningful factor. A § 28-701.02 charge is a class 3 misdemeanor and signals conduct serious enough that punitive damages may be on the table, especially combined with other aggravating facts like alcohol, racing, or extreme excess over the limit.
It varies, but the clock starts the moment the vehicle leaves the scene. Once a totaled car goes to salvage and gets crushed, the data is gone. Sometimes within weeks. Preservation letters need to go out fast.
Generally no. You’re typically not required to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement. Your obligations to your own insurer depend on your policy’s cooperation clause, which is a different question and worth running by an attorney before you respond.
If you were hit by a speeding driver in Phoenix, the evidence that proves your case is degrading right now. Free case review, no attorney’s fees unless we recover, fee terms set out in the written agreement: (602) 345-1818. We answer 24/7.
By Jared J. Pehrson | Impact Legal Car Accident Attorneys
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