Failure to Maintain Lane in Virginia: What It Means

Failure to maintain lane in Virginia is Va. Code § 46.2-804, and it is one of the few sections in the whole motor vehicle title that names its own penalty. The last line says it plainly: a violation of this section is punishable by a fine of $100. It is a traffic infraction, not a misdemeanor and not a crime, so there is no jail exposure in the section at all.

What failure to maintain lane means in Virginia

The charge comes from subdivision 2 of § 46.2-804, which applies wherever a roadway has been divided into clearly marked lanes:

A vehicle shall be driven as nearly as is practicable entirely within a single lane and shall not be moved from that lane until the driver has ascertained that such movement can be made safely.

There are two separate duties in that sentence, and a summons can rest on either.

• Stay in the lane. The standard is “as nearly as is practicable” — not perfectly, and not without exception. Practicability is the word that leaves room for a gust of wind, a pothole, a cyclist or debris.
• Check before moving out of it. A lane change made without ascertaining that it can be made safely violates the section even if the driver never left his own lane untidily.

That second duty is why “improper lane change” and “failure to maintain lane” are frequently the same section on a Virginia ticket.

Most of these summonses follow a moment of inattention, and it is worth knowing that Virginia has no offense called distracted driving. What the Code does have is a separate section for holding a phone, § 46.2-818.2, at a fixed $125 for a first offense. A driver who looks down and drifts can be charged under both, and the two are counted separately on the record.

What else is in § 46.2-804

The section is the general lane-discipline rule and it carries six other subdivisions, all under the same $100 penalty. Slower traffic must keep to the right-hand lane except when overtaking, preparing a left turn, or where right lanes are reserved for slow-moving traffic. On a three-lane highway the centre lane is restricted to overtaking, left turns and allocated directions. A solid line immediately adjacent to a broken line may not be crossed from the solid side, except to turn or to pass a pedestrian, bicycle, skateboard or foot-scooter where that can be done safely — and a middle turn lane marked that way may not be travelled in for more than 150 feet. Double solid yellow lines and double solid white lines carry their own prohibitions.

What the ticket costs

	Failure to maintain lane
Section	Va. Code § 46.2-804
Classification	Traffic infraction
Fine	$100, stated in the section
Court costs	A fixed $51 (§ 16.1-69.48:1 D)
Total on a conviction	$151
Jail	None

The $100 is fixed by the statute rather than left to the judge’s discretion within a ceiling, which makes this charge unusual. Most Title 46.2 offenses say nothing about money, and for those Va. Code § 46.2-113 supplies the answer — a traffic infraction punishable by a fine of not more than the Class 4 misdemeanor figure in § 18.2-11, which is $250. A lane charge comes in below that default, not above it.

Court costs are still added on a conviction and are not part of the $100. Va. Code § 16.1-69.48:1 D fixes them at $51 in a traffic infraction tried in district court, so a failure to maintain lane conviction is $151 in total.

Demerit points

The statute says nothing about demerit points, because points are not a court penalty. They are assessed by the Virginia DMV under its own published schedule once a conviction is reported, and the value attaches to the DMV’s description of the offense rather than to the Code section. Any figure quoted for this charge should be checked against the DMV’s own violation lists rather than taken from a statute that does not mention points at all. What the Code does establish is that a conviction is reported and becomes part of the driving record.

Is failure to maintain lane a misdemeanor?

No — not in Virginia. Va. Code § 18.2-8 places traffic infractions in a category of their own: violations of public order that are not deemed to be criminal in nature. Section 46.2-804 creates an infraction and fixes a $100 fine, and there is no jail term in it.

What can change that is the driving, not the lane. If the manner of driving endangers life, limb or property, the available charge is reckless driving under Article 7 of Chapter 8, a Class 1 misdemeanor. A driver who weaves badly enough may be charged that way instead, and where the degree of culpability is slight a court may find him guilty of improper driving under Va. Code § 46.2-869 — a traffic infraction with a fine of not more than $500 — rather than reckless driving.

Failure to maintain control is a different charge entirely

The two names are one word apart and the consequences are not. Va. Code § 46.2-853 is a single sentence, and it sits in Article 7 with the rest of Virginia’s reckless driving offenses:

A person shall be guilty of reckless driving who drives a vehicle which is not under proper control or which has inadequate or improperly adjusted brakes on any highway in the Commonwealth.

Every conviction under that article is a Class 1 misdemeanor under Va. Code § 46.2-868 — a criminal conviction carrying up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 — and the DMV assesses 6 demerit points for it and keeps the conviction on the record for 11 years.

	Failure to maintain lane	Failure to maintain control
Section	§ 46.2-804	§ 46.2-853
Nature	Traffic infraction	Class 1 misdemeanor, a crime
Fine	$100, fixed	Up to $2,500
Jail	None	Up to 12 months
Demerit points	Set by the DMV	6 points, 11 years

So the first thing to read on a summons is the section number, not the words the officer wrote on it. A ticket citing § 46.2-804 is the $100 infraction this page describes. A ticket citing § 46.2-853 is reckless driving, and nothing on this page about fines, jail or points applies to it.

Virginia’s section, not another state’s

Search results for this phrase are unusually unreliable, because almost every state has a lane-discipline statute and they all share the same plain-English name. The numbers that come back — Georgia’s 40-6-48, an Arizona Title 28 citation, an Indiana or Kansas code reference, a Pennsylvania Title 75 section — belong to other states’ law and say nothing about a Virginia summons.

In Virginia the citation is § 46.2-804, the fine is $100, and it is an infraction. If the ticket in hand shows a different number, it was not written in Virginia.

Answering the charge

The statute’s own wording supplies most of the arguments.

“As nearly as is practicable.” The section does not demand a perfect line. Wind, a pothole, standing water, a cyclist or debris in the lane are reasons a movement was practicable and lawful, and they are facts a driver can describe.

“Until the driver has ascertained.” On a lane-change charge, the question is what the driver checked before moving, not whether another vehicle happened to be there.

The lines themselves. Several subdivisions depend on what was painted. Where a charge rests on crossing a marked line, the marking is a traffic control device, and Va. Code § 46.2-830 bars enforcement where the device was not in proper position and sufficiently legible to be seen by an ordinarily observant person. Worn or missing markings are a real answer, and the defense to a traffic-device charge is worth reading alongside this one.

Prepaying is a conviction. On a $100 fine that is often the practical choice, but it sends the conviction to the DMV, and drivers who are already carrying points from a four points for following too closely or signal charge should look at the how Virginia prices every moving violation before mailing it in. This page explains the section; what a particular summons is worth on a particular record is a question for a Virginia traffic attorney and for the general district court named on the ticket.