No, you cannot realistically be charged with attempted manslaughter for speeding. The charge is close to a legal impossibility because manslaughter is an unintentional killing and an attempt crime requires proof that the defendant specifically intended to commit the underlying offense. Trying to prove someone intended to kill unintentionally is a contradiction courts have rejected. Extreme speeding can still carry serious criminal consequences, and if a death results, the driver faces vehicular manslaughter or homicide charges that may bring years in prison.
Why the Charge Almost Never Exists
Manslaughter covers killings that happen without an intent to kill, typically through criminal negligence or recklessness.1Cornell Law School. Vehicular Manslaughter Attempt crimes require the opposite: proof that the defendant specifically intended to commit the completed offense and took a concrete step toward completing it.2Legal Information Institute. Attempt Those two requirements cannot both be true about the same act.
Courts have said so directly. In People v. Foster (1967), New York’s highest court wrote that “an attempt to commit manslaughter is apparently a contradiction because the specific crime of manslaughter involves no intent and accordingly, an intention to commit a crime whose distinguishing element is lack of intent is logically repugnant.” A Canadian court reached the same conclusion in R. v. Menard (1960), calling it “impossible to conceive of attempted manslaughter.” You cannot try to accidentally kill someone.
Two narrow exceptions are worth flagging so you don’t assume they help your situation. Federal law under 18 U.S.C. ยง 1113 technically recognizes attempted manslaughter, but only within special federal jurisdiction such as military bases or federal land. It is not a charge a local prosecutor builds against a speeding driver on a public road. A handful of states also allow defendants to plead down to attempted manslaughter as part of a negotiated deal, but that happens inside plea bargaining, not as an initial charge.
Why Speeding Specifically Cannot Fit
Speeding, even at outrageous speeds, does not show an intent to kill. It shows recklessness or indifference, which is the mental state for manslaughter itself. That is exactly where a prosecutor runs out of room. To file an attempt charge, the state would have to argue the driver intended the result. To file manslaughter, the state has to argue the driver did not. The same conduct cannot carry both labels at once.
Attempt also requires a substantial step beyond mere preparation that strongly shows criminal purpose, like acquiring tools for a planned crime or lying in wait.2Legal Information Institute. Attempt Pressing an accelerator is not evidence of a plan to kill a specific person. It is evidence of dangerous driving, which the law already addresses through its own set of charges.
What Prosecutors Actually Charge
Dangerous speeding does not stay in traffic court just because attempted manslaughter is off the table. Several states have built automatic triggers into their laws so that raw speed, by itself, becomes criminal reckless driving. Thresholds vary by state, and prosecutors in states without a bright-line rule can still argue that an extreme speed shows the willful or wanton disregard for safety that reckless driving statutes require.
Reckless Driving
This is the workhorse charge. In most states, reckless driving means operating a vehicle with willful or wanton disregard for the safety of people or property. It is a criminal misdemeanor. Jail time for a first offense can range from 30 days to nearly a year depending on the state. Fines run from a few hundred dollars to more than $5,000 in states like Washington and Oregon. License suspension or revocation is common.
Reckless Endangerment
Reckless driving focuses on how you operated the vehicle. Endangerment focuses on the risk you created for other people, criminalizing conduct that places someone in danger of death or serious physical injury. Driving at extreme speeds through a school zone, for example, could be charged as endangerment even without a collision. Depending on severity, it can range from a misdemeanor to a felony.
Vehicular Assault
When dangerous speeding injures someone but no one dies, vehicular assault fills the gap. The prosecutor must show the driver caused injury through specified misconduct such as reckless driving, intoxication, or negligent operation.3Justia. Vehicular Assault Laws Many states require the injury to be serious, meaning a broken bone or spinal injury rather than a bruise.
If Someone Dies
When a death results from a driver’s extreme speed, the question shifts from attempted manslaughter to the completed crime of vehicular manslaughter or vehicular homicide. The “attempted” problem disappears because the harm occurred. A prosecutor must show the driver’s operation of the vehicle was criminally negligent or reckless, meaning the driver was aware of a substantial risk to human life and ignored it.1Cornell Law School. Vehicular Manslaughter
That is a higher bar than ordinary carelessness. A momentary lapse in judgment typically will not support the charge. Driving at over 100 mph through city streets while intoxicated almost certainly would. In extreme cases involving conscious disregard for human life, some jurisdictions allow prosecutors to upgrade the charge to second-degree murder under doctrines like California’s “Watson rule.”4Justia. Vehicular Homicide Laws
Penalties vary widely. Some states cap sentences at one year for a negligent killing. Others allow 15 years or more when intoxication or gross negligence is involved. Washington permits sentences up to life imprisonment in the most egregious cases.4Justia. Vehicular Homicide Laws
What Pushes the Charges Higher
Speed alone is only part of the picture. What the driver was doing alongside the speeding often decides whether a case stays a misdemeanor or climbs into felony territory.
- Driving under the influence. Adding alcohol or drugs to extreme speed is the most common path to the most serious charges, and intoxication at the time of a fatal crash often doubles or triples the available sentence.
- Street racing. Many states treat racing on public roads as automatic reckless driving, and the competitive element shows deliberate risk-taking.
- Fleeing from police. A high-speed chase shows consciousness of guilt and compounds the danger block by block.
- Vulnerable locations. Speeding through a school zone, construction area, or residential neighborhood carries more weight than the same speed on an empty highway.
- Children in the vehicle. Reckless driving with a minor passenger can trigger separate child endangerment charges on top of the traffic or vehicular offense.
- Prior offenses. A pattern of serious traffic violations brings enhanced penalties in nearly every state and makes an “isolated lapse” argument much harder.
What a Conviction Costs Beyond Court
The consequences of a criminal driving conviction continue after sentencing. Auto insurance premiums spike after a reckless driving conviction, with some industry analyses estimating increases of 60 percent or more. Some insurers drop coverage entirely and push the driver into a high-risk policy at a steeper cost. The premium penalty typically lasts three to five years.
A criminal misdemeanor on your record can affect employment, professional licensing, housing applications, and security clearances. Unlike a traffic ticket, a reckless driving conviction appears on criminal background checks. If the offense involved injury or death, the driver also faces civil lawsuits from victims or their families, and the criminal conviction can be used as evidence of fault. A civil judgment can far exceed anything the criminal court imposes.