Collaring the extreme speeders

The story in Monday’s paper was welcome news: Maine State Police, concerned with a dramatic rise in the number of certified morons driving up to 50 miles per hour over the posted speed limits on the state’s highways, are mad as hell and not about to take it any longer.

Maine State Police Chief Craig Poulin said it is not unusual for his troopers to stop motorists on the interstate for driving “30, 40 or 50 miles an hour over the posted limit,” which is 65 mph in most rural areas and 55 mph in stretches through cities.

“We have had people stopped after going well over 100 miles an hour, and it’s becoming more frequent,” Poulin said. “Obscene” is the word that Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara used in the Capitol News Service story to describe the speeds attained by lead-footed motorists. The article did not speculate as to what adjective Cantara might privately choose for the speeders themselves, but I suspect it would be classic.

“Inconsiderate jerks” is the term that reader Greg Rossel of Troy used in a thoughtful letter to the editor on Thursday. The description, though accurate, seems somewhat bland when you consider the potential for disaster represented in a motor vehicle rocketing down the public highway at speeds exceeding 100 mph. “Homicidal” definitely ought to be included in any phrase describing these dopes. Throw in a strategically placed $%#@!*& and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.

Rossel faulted the automotive industry for insisting on installing speedometers that commonly read to triple digits “as a sales ploy,” and massive engines that allow vehicles to reach such extreme limits.

He makes a good point. Put an idiot in a vehicle that has a nuclear reactor for an engine and a speedometer that reads to 120 mph, wind him up at the Bangor city limits and point him north on the interstate, and well before he’s reached the Alton Bog – probably some place up around Veazie – he will have maxed-out both the engine and the speedometer.

According to the article in the paper, it’s this crowd that ticket-writing state police intend to target, possibly through increased use of their “Bear In The Air” aircraft surveillance lashup working in tandem with troopers on the ground.

Poulin says the tactic, aggressively applied, can bring to ground even the most determined speed freak. “There have been times when the aircraft has identified more speeders than we have units available,” he said. To observe the operation running to perfection is to behold a thing of beauty.

The problem for the guys in the Smokey Bear hats, it turns out, lies not in collaring extreme speeders. Once locked in on a fleeing felon, they always get their man. The problem lies in convicting extreme speeders in a court of law, where the success rate is only 57 percent, mainly because many district attorneys allow offenders to plead to a lesser speed infraction. Speeding to wild excess is a criminal matter. Accordingly, prosecutors must prove intent and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which can be difficult.

One district attorney said anyone caught driving 35 mph over the speed limit in his fiefdom will face criminal charges, although there are exceptions. He cited the case of a man stopped on the interstate for going 41 mph over the 65 mph limit – an “obscene” 106 mph – who was allowed to plead to 29 mph beyond the limit, or “only” 94 mph, because he was responding to a family emergency.

Presumably, had a cow moose wandered onto the highway in front of that particular guided missile the man would also have been allowed to plead guilty to being Dead On Arrival at the nearest hospital emergency room.

Theoretically, anyone caught speeding 30 mph over the posted limit can be jailed. But if the state were to pursue a zero-tolerance policy in the matter, there wouldn’t be enough jail space to hold all the criminals. So it mainly relies on hefty fines – an average of $327 in 2004 – to discourage the miscreants.

Obviously, since the rate of extreme speeding has increased by 23 percent in the past three years, such a puny penalty isn’t working worth a damn. Officialdom now talks of upping the ante to $500 per offense, which, to me, seems still a bit on the wussy side of the scale.

Doubling that proposed penalty would be a better attention-getter. Public flogging in the town square might work, as well. But being consigned to rot in hell is out. That one’s reserved for the tailgaters.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net