“Driving over 100 miles per hour is not a mistake; it is a reckless choice that endangers everyone on the road”. That was a line used by CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee to put a new strategy California is experimenting with in 2026- one where triple-digit speeding is not a paperwork-plodding issue, but a serious safety concern.
This program is referred to as FAST-Forwarded Actions to Speeding Tickets and it involves the enforcement by the California Highway Patrol which is accompanied by a greater administrative evaluation at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Beginning in December 2025, CHP quotes are sent to a DMV Driver Safety Branch in an automatic referral after reaching 100 mph or above. To the drivers in the Los Angeles area who consider the open lanes on the freeways as their personal runway, the short date might not be the immediate effect anymore. It may be a letter from the DMV.
The characteristics of FAST are speed but not the type we have on the road but the type within the bureaucracy. The DMV has clarified that its determination may be without reference to any short proceedings, in as much as a driver can be suspended or revoked even as a ticket is subjected to the judicial system. The referral also does not despise a conviction and can be used even in the situations when a driver has no previous points. In reality, when the driver makes 100-plus mph, a single stop may put the right to drive under investigation and in this case the DMV evaluates the incident with the record of the person.
Agencies of the state do not hide their intentions of what they are attempting to disrupt: the notion that excessive speeding is a bet worth making, particularly on well-traved, broad, highways that spur impatience. The DMV and CHP refer to FAST as to “early intervention”, which is a move that endeavours to intercept the most precarious conduct before it turns into a collision report.
That crisis is superimposed on old fashioned, bleak arithmetic. The California officials suggest that road crashes associated with speeding contribute to about one-third of the road deaths in the state over the past ten years. The dialogue in Los Angeles is even more intense since the evils extend beyond the drivers. The safety information maintained by the city itself states that 336 individuals were killed in road accidents in the streets of Los Angeles in 2023, and over half were pedestrians. Stir in the everyday reality of freeway merging, scant on-ramps, and aged intersections and the space of error at 100 mph is becoming extremely narrow.
Authorities refer to the magnitude of the behavior they are attacking. The average number of quotes issued by CHP officers to drive at 100 mph and above is about 1,600 every month, with the agency issuing over 18,000 of such quotes in 2024. And that is not a niche issue that is limited to a few unnotorious stretches; it is a repetitive workload. It also assists in identifying why FAST is implemented as a system change and not a burst of enforcement.
FAST comes with other tools that imply to modify driver behavior, in case with the absence of the common visual cues. In 2025, CHP started implementing 100 low-profile, specially marked patrol cars that are supposed to be in traffic long enough to see what officers refer to as video game-style driving. During the first half-year of the cars being on the road, the DMV reported that officers gave almost 33,000 speed-related quotations in the state with over 1,100 of those being over 100 mph.
Another context is given by the public attitudes. Speeding and aggressive driving were once again the most significant road problems in the California Traffic Safety Survey 2025, with drunk driving and texting coming in the next two positions. The same survey established that aggressive driving and road rage were the most frequently cited changes in driver behavior since the COVID-19 pandemic- an observation that is consistent with the sentiments expressed by many commuters around them in the lane.
In case where any driver is involved and got swept in FAST, it is an administrative process which is conducted by the Driver Safety Branch of DMV on a different track than that of criminal court. The DMV states that individuals have a right to hearings, and these hearings are not conducted by the judge, but a Driver Safety Hearing Officer. Time limits: the general instruction of DMV states that one has to request a hearing within 10 days of notifying, or 14 days of the date of notification in case the notification was sent by mail.
How does all of this play out on the streets in Los Angeles? It indicates that the state is developing a closer bridge between one high-speed stop and the potential of not being able to drive at any speed whatsoever. In an area where commuting continues to be the standard of transport, family logistics, and everyday living, FAST repackages triple-digit speeding as an occasion that may cause rapidly serious repercussions- afore the subsequent on-ramp, the subsequent move over a divider, or the subsequent near-miss, has time to take effect.
