ST. LOUIS (AP) – The Missouri State Highway Patrol is reporting a dangerous trend on roads and highways left wide open by the shutdown tied to the coronavirus outbreak: People speeding at extraordinarily fast levels.
Patrol officials told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that at least once a day during the outbreak, motorists are being caught traveling faster than 100 mph. Troopers are hearing excuses ranging from “There’s no traffic” to “I’m not hurting anyone.”
Authorities say triple-digit speeding normally leads to an arrest and a trip to jail. But fear about spreading the virus in jail means that the highway patrol isn’t arresting even the worst of the speeding offenders. Instead, they are given a summons to appear in court.
The patrol says the top speed troopers have seen during the outbreak was someone traveling at 145 mph in Ray County on April 17. Another motorist was caught going 143 mph in Pettis County on April 14, and a Mustang reached 121 mph in Newton County on April 17.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI