Careless Driving in Minnesota

Minnesota Careless Driving

In Minnesota, a person may be charged with careless driving for a wide variety of driving conduct.  Additionally, a person charged with a DUI offense may be allowed to “plead down” to a careless driving offense pursuant to a plea agreement with the prosecutor’s office.  Being offered a careless driving resolution in a DUI case will depend on the city or county in which the offense occurred.  A city or county may have a policy of not offering a careless driving plea in any DWI case where the defendant’s alcohol concentration was .10 or more.  Or they may have a policy of limiting careless driving resolutions to only those cases where the alcohol concentration was precisely .08, but not in cases involving a higher reading.  Additionally, some cities and counties have policies of not offering careless driving pleas in any DWI cases at all.  It is important to remember that every case is unique.  Just because a certain city or county prosecutor maintains that they will not offer a DWI defendant a careless driving resolution, a reduced charge is achievable, depending on the facts and circumstances of a given case, and the lawyering of a defendant’s attorney.

Careless Driving – Defined

Pursuant to Section 169.13, subdivision 2(a) of the Minnesota Statutes, the offense of careless driving is defined as follows:

Any person who operates or halts any vehicle upon any street or highway carelessly or heedlessly in disregard of the rights of others, or in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger any property or any person, including the driver or passengers of the vehicle, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

As can be seen, the statute is written broadly, so as to encompass a wide range of driving conduct that can be classified as careless driving. For example, if a person is weaving in and out of traffic and cutting off other drivers, it can fairly be said that they are driving “heedlessly and in disregard of the rights of others.”  That is, they are driving without regard for the rights of other drivers to travel safely in their own lanes of traffic.  Additionally, such a driver is almost certainly driving in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger persons or property.

In DWI cases that are reduced to careless driving, there is always the requirement of a factual basis.  As with any plea, a defendant must admit to those facts that make him guilty of the offense to which he is pleading guilty.  Oftentimes, a defendant in a DUI case will have been pulled over for one or more traffic violations, and it is these very same violations that may constitute the basis for the careless driving plea.  For example, if a driver is stopped for going through a stop sign and subsequently arrested for DWI, they can use the stop sign violation as the basis for the careless driving plea.

An Experienced Lawyer Can Help

If you have been charged with a DWI or DUI, our experienced attorneys can help.  Our firm is results-oriented.  We put in the time necessary on each of our clients’ files to ensure that the outcome of their case is the very best it can be.  We have achieved pretrial dismissals, jury trial acquittals, and reduced charges for our clients through Minnesota.  Some of those results can be viewed on our DWI/DUI Results Page.  We are located in downtown Minneapolis, but we practice throughout the state of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Our lawyers can be reached 24/7 at 612-767-9643, or through the contact form below.