{"id":61810,"date":"2026-01-26T23:46:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T04:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=61810"},"modified":"2026-01-26T23:46:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T04:46:47","slug":"polk-county-sheriffs-office-warns-of-jailtime-for-speeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/01\/26\/polk-county-sheriffs-office-warns-of-jailtime-for-speeding\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office warns of jailtime for speeding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office is warning against excessive speeding on local roadways like I-4.

\u201cWe are informing people that it has criminal consequences now,\u201d said PCSO Lt. Rob Walmsley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one case, a driver is facing jail time after deputies said they caught him hitting at least 120 mph on I-4 in Haines City Saturday morning. Walmsley said usually, by the time they catch up to the speeders, they rarely have a good reason for doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cHead in the clouds, on their cellphone, distracted while they\u2019re driving that way, they tell us that they don\u2019t even realize that they\u2019re going that fast,\u201d said Walmsley. \u201cThere\u2019s others that are blatantly out there racing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says making I-4 safer is a priority for the sheriff\u2019s office, ever since the highway earned a spot on a list of \u2018The Most Dangerous Roads in the US\u2019 back in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said they\u2019re seeing promising results, like fewer deaths, since a new law was put into effect last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe people of Polk County know we\u2019re out there, it\u2019s the ones that may not come regularly that get the surprise,\u201d said Walmsley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law changed last July for speeders going 50 mph over the posted speed limit and for those riding above 100 mph. Now, those drivers could spend up to 30 days in jail, or even have their license revoked for repeat offenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s meant to be a deterrent for this kind of behavior because honestly, it\u2019s kind of clich\u00e9, but speed does kill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walmsley said drivers are also risking much more than their criminal record when they disregard the speed limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bad part about it is that it\u2019s innocent people traversing the roadways without a clue,\u201d said Walmsley.  \u201cHow fast a car comes up on you when they\u2019re going in excess of 100 mph, you\u2019re not expecting that, and it\u2019s affecting people more than we\u2019d like to admit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said for those who have legitimate emergencies happen to them in the car, instead of speeding, they want you to dial 9-1-1 and pull over. They won\u2019t send you a police escort, but they will send a trained first responder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office is warning against excessive speeding on local roadways like I-4. \u201cWe are informing people that it has criminal consequences now,\u201d said PCSO Lt. Rob Walmsley.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"23","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxOVwvMDdcL1NoZXJpZmYtR3JhZHktSnVkZC5qcGc_Zml0PTY0MCUyQzQ0OCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IlBvbGsgQ291bnR5IFNoZXJpZmZcdTIwMTlzIE9mZmljZSB3YXJucyBvZiBqYWlsdGltZSBmb3Igc3BlZWRpbmciLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.EIbq5udquncqAP-kxQg12sWkQ5-MhztR1qgTX54GSOIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":37576,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/judd.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[13378],"class_list":["post-61810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sheriffs-corner","tag-polk-county-sheriffs-office-warns-of-jailtime-for-speeding"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61811,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61810\/revisions\/61811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}