Posted on 09/17/2010 10:18:22 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Going 96 mph on a 65-mph highway is enough to land a speeder in serious legal trouble.
That’s 31 mph over the speed limit, and it’s the threshold between a regular speeding violation and the more egregious offense of “excessive speeding,” which earns violators a meeting with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that they’ll likely walk out of with a suspended license.
On Wednesday night, state police stopped a motorcyclist they said was clocked at 147 mph. That’s 82 mph over the limit.
“That is probably the highest speed I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been at PennDOT nine years now,” PennDOT spokeswoman Fritzi Schreffler said.
The motorcyclist might be one of the fastest speeders caught in the midstate. Schreffler and Trooper Tom Pinkerton, a state police spokesman, said they’ve never seen reports of people caught at speeds that are even close to 147 mph.
The identity of the 24-year-old Enola man will be released after he’s charged when toxicology reports come back indicating whether he was under the influence of alcohol, police said.
In 2003, a Carbon County man was caught while going 182 mph in his Lamborghini Diablo.
In Wednesday’s case, an officer waiting in the construction zone on Interstate 81 northbound in Silver Spring Township — just before Route 114 — caught the red 2003 Honda CBR 600RR motorcycle’s speed on radar, according to state police. The officer pulled out, lights flashing, to signal the motorcyclist over.
Pinkerton said police wouldn’t chase a vehicle going that fast because it would put other drivers in harm’s way. But, he said, “You still have to pull out and afford the driver the opportunity to know that police are wanting him to pull over.”
Police said they caught up with the motorcyclist when he slowed down to avoid a cluster of three tractor-trailers.
“He should count himself lucky that the tractor-trailers were ahead,” Schreffler said.
It takes a person’s brain 1.5 seconds to identify an issue ahead in the road and react to it, said Greg Sullenberger of Crashteams Pennsylvania & West Virginia, an accident-investigation agency. Someone going 147 mph would travel about 322 feet in those 1.5 seconds, making it unlikely he or she would be able to avoid an accident, he said.
If someone crashes a motorcycle — or even a car — at 147 mph, experts agree it would take a miracle for him to come out alive.
“Your internal organs just can’t survive that,” Sullenberger said.
Fast-moving motorcycles present a special danger for other vehicles. Because a motorcycle is a narrow object, it would slice through a car rather than just hit it, injuring or killing the driver or passengers. “It will sort of cut into a car like a knife into butter,” Sullenberger said.
A speeder who survives going 147 mph could face steep legal penalties.
Drivers going more than 31 mph over the speed limit have to attend a special hearing with PennDOT, Schreffler said. That can result in a range of penalties, such as retaking the driving test, mandated driving classes and a 15-day license suspension.
There’s no special class under state law for drivers going as much as 82 mph over the limit because it’s so unheard of, Schreffler said. So despite the extreme circumstances, PennDOT officials, as much as they might like to, cannot impose penalties outside what’s specified by law, she said. But the motorcyclist in Wednesday’s incident likely will see doubled fines because he was clocked in a work zone, she said.
In addition to speeding violations, someone going that fast could face charges of reckless driving or recklessly endangering another person, depending on whether there were other vehicles on the road, Pinkerton said.
Yes, 147 is so dangerous, that is why drivers in Germany routinely reach speeds of 200 MPH on the autobahn. Granted, it is harder to react at that speed but Germans seem to handle it quite well and have a better safety record than we do, per capita.
I’ll never forget one day in West Germany on the autobahn when I was serving in the Army. I was driving along in a military issue Blazer about 70-75 MPH and saw headlights flashing in my rear view mirror around a mile behind me. In next to no time flat a Mercedes went screaming by me at what must have been around 200 MPH and was over a mile ahead of me in what seemed like a few seconds.
That was an interesting introduction to life in the fast lane!
1999 stock BMW M3 with a chip 175+ no problem and drives like a dream at that speed.
Autobahn, Regensberg to Munich. Had the car floored and almost killed myself ausfahrting at full speed. Luckily, that was a lot of grass in front of me when I catapulted off the road.
It sure as hell improves your driving skills. I remember getting back home driving at 80 mph thinking “oh my God we drive so slow”.
Indeed.
Hitting anything at that speed would make your internal organs a pulp, rendering them unusable.
Back in 86 I was one of these idiots on a brand new GSXR 750 with a bigbore kit.Just south of atlanta was the town of hapeville where I was made a guest of the hapeville hilton(JAIL) for running(clocked) at 153 MPH on 85 southbound.The world of shite that happened afterward cured me.There was an ANGEL riding with me that night.
Then again, they probably realized they too, would be trying to get out of Blythe as fast as possible.
Seem to remember seeing something graphic like that one time. In a car yes, on a bike on the track, yes. On a bike on a road with other cars, no way.
Slice through the windshield definitely but otherwise the bike will easily go sideways once it hits a car (or so I think)
147 mph on Pennsylvania roads! The guy should not be given a ticket> He should be given a psychiatric exam.
Sometimes, the jokes write themselves...
It did that time. The two cases of Bischofshof in the back made it, luckily.
I had a ‘92 GSX600, yoshi pipe, carb kit, ignition advance, K&N filters with modified air box, ect. This has the same crank and lower end as the 750GSXR. Hit over 136 from Mendenhal glacier visitor’s center heading back towards the back loop in Juneau. Nice little straight away there. Tee shirt and no helmet, eyes watering down my back, thinking back now it scares me how youth can make your balls so big and your brain so small. Damn, I miss that bike.
Weren’t you afraid the tires would blow?
They didn’t have Eagles and Pirellis and such back then...were the tires still capable of taking sustained 150 mph speeds?
Ed
The tears! I forgot about the tears until you reminded me of that.Kind of gives you a chill thinking back on the stuff we used to do.My kids are young and only think of their old man as a stick in the mudd.We will just keep it that way.Be well FRiend.
I’ve driven 149.2 MPH, and it wasn’t a blur.
It was on a track...but it still wasn’t a blur.
The guy saw the semis, so it must not have been a blur for him, either.
Awesome!!!
“I’ve got a Mustang GT. I drive it like an old lady.”
If you drive it like an old lady, why do you have it?
Seriously...what’s the point?
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