A Jacksonville Sheriff's Office traffic officer working in an unmarked SUV watched two cars take off side by side across the Buckman Bridge on Friday, August 14, apparently unaware they were being clocked — and one of them hit 120 mph before the officer pulled the driver over on the spot.
The arrest was one of eight made during Operation Double Down, a targeted weekend crackdown on dangerous driving across Jacksonville, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, as reported by News4JAX. Officer Ernesto Valerio, who works in JSO's Specialized Traffic Enforcement Unit, spotted the two cars driving side by side and blocking traffic on the bridge before they sped off and reached speeds of 120 mph. Valerio arrested one of the drivers, 22-year-old Quashay Frazier Jr., on the spot.
Frazier was charged with super speeding and racing, along with a felony and multiple misdemeanors, per the report. The Buckman Bridge carries Interstate 295 over the St. Johns River for roughly 3.1 miles between Mandarin and Orange Park, and it currently sits under a reduced 55 mph construction-zone speed limit — down from its normal 65 mph — while the Florida Department of Transportation carries out a $5.4 million bridge repair project involving finger-joint replacements and structural steel work scheduled to run through late 2026. Frazier's alleged 120 mph run would have blown past that construction limit by more than double.
A Weekend-Long Sweep Across the City
Operation Double Down included eight total arrests over Friday and Saturday, JSO said, and the sheriff's office has promised additional details about the initiative as it continues. The department describes the effort as a weekend initiative specifically targeting street racing and excessive speeding across Jacksonville, arriving as speed and impairment remain among the top contributing factors in the city's road deaths this year, per JSO.
The stakes behind that framing are stark: people have lost more than 100 lives on Jacksonville roads so far in 2026, according to JSO. That toll follows 166 traffic fatalities recorded citywide in 2025, with Duval County deaths crossing 90 by mid-June before surpassing 100 by mid-August this year.
Legal Exposure Under Florida's Tightened Speeding Laws
Frazier's charges land squarely within a legal framework state lawmakers have sharpened repeatedly over the past two years. Under Florida Statute § 316.191, updated by Senate Bill 1764 in 2024, a first-offense street racing conviction carries a mandatory fine of up to $2,000 and a one-year license revocation, while a second offense within a year becomes a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $4,000 fine. Separately, Florida Statute § 316.1922, created by House Bill 351 and effective since July 2025, made driving 50 mph or more over the posted limit — or 100 mph or faster in a dangerous manner — a second-degree criminal misdemeanor carrying up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine for a first offense, rather than a routine traffic ticket.
The Buckman Bridge's narrow, 3.1-mile span over open water leaves little room for error at highway speeds. A Florida Department of Transportation safety study found that nearly half of all collisions on the bridge are rear-end crashes, while 8 percent involve impacts with the bridge's concrete barrier walls — the kind of danger amplified when vehicles are traveling well over 100 mph.
Part of a Broader Pattern on Jacksonville's Bridges
This is not the first time this month that JSO's Specialized Traffic Enforcement Unit has caught a driver hitting triple-digit speeds on one of the city's major river crossings. Just days earlier, an officer with the same unit caught a driver going 120 mph across the Mathews Bridge — nearly triple its posted 45 mph limit — which led to a DUI arrest after a blunt was spotted in the driver's hand. On August 3, JSO deputies also arrested a 24-year-old driver on I-295 after clocking his vehicle at up to 117 mph in a 65 mph zone with a child in the car, charging him with child neglect and super-speeding.
The enforcement push echoes earlier crackdowns, including a January 2025 operation in which JSO targeted an illegal street racing and stunt meetup in Riverside, resulting in multiple arrests and vehicle impoundments. Statewide, law enforcement agencies issued more than 9,100 citations for street racing, stunt driving, and speed exhibitions between 2018 and 2023, according to the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles data, reflecting a long-running effort to curb reckless highway driving across Florida. It remains unclear whether additional arrests will emerge from Operation Double Down or whether prosecutors will pursue felony charges against any of the eight people taken into custody over the weekend.
