Aggressive Driving Citations in Pennsylvania

What the offense actually is.

"Aggressive driving" in Pennsylvania is an enforcement label, not a statute. PennDOT and the State Police run aggressive-driving enforcement waves — extra patrols aimed at tailgating, weaving, unsafe passing, and speeding clustered together on a single stretch of road. When a trooper or officer decides a stop fits that label, the citation they actually write still has to cite real Vehicle Code sections, because there is no section titled aggressive driving to cite.

The most common count in this bundle is reckless driving under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3736, which requires willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property — a higher mental-state bar than ordinary carelessness. It is graded as a summary offense with a $200 fine, is not listed in the § 1535 point schedule at all, but § 1532(b)(1) imposes a mandatory 6-month license suspension on conviction. That suspension exposure, not the fine, is what makes a reckless driving count the one worth fighting hardest.

Alongside reckless driving, officers frequently add careless driving under § 3714(a) (careless disregard for the safety of persons or property, 3 points), speeding under § 3362 (2 to 5 points depending on how far over the limit, with 31-plus over triggering a departmental hearing under § 1538(d)), and following too closely under § 3310 (3 points). Improper passing counts under the § 33xx passing sections sometimes round out the citation as well.

Because each of these is graded and penalized separately, the honest answer to "what happens if I'm convicted of aggressive driving" is: it depends entirely on which specific counts survive. A driver who ends up with only a speeding or careless conviction faces points and a fine. A driver convicted of the reckless driving count on top of that is looking at a license suspension regardless of how the points add up.

What a conviction costs.

The suspension risk in an "aggressive driving" case comes almost entirely from the reckless driving count. Because § 3736 sits outside the § 1535 point schedule, PennDOT does not treat it like a points violation — it applies the flat 6-month suspension under § 1532(b)(1) automatically on conviction, with no discretion for the sentencing judge to avoid it once a conviction is entered. That is a materially worse outcome than a stack of two or three point-bearing summary offenses, which by themselves would not suspend a license unless the driver's point total independently reaches the thresholds in § 1539.

There is also a statutory interaction worth knowing: under § 1535(b), when careless driving is charged along with another offense arising from the same act at the same time and place, no points attach to the careless driving conviction if points are assigned to the other offense. That means a citation with both a careless driving count and a speeding count from the same stop may not double the point exposure — only one of the two typically contributes points to your record, which is a detail worth confirming before assuming the worst-case math.

For the full point schedule and suspension thresholds, see the PA license points & suspension guide. If a magisterial district judge has already found you guilty, you have 30 days to file a summary appeal for a new trial at the Court of Common Pleas.