Speeding driver flies past OPP cruiser
You would think she might have noticed the car on her right.
As a 24-year-old woman from Brampton who was travelling through Niagara shot past a slower vehicle, the driver ran into two problems.
First, she was travelling at 175 km/h Niagara-bound lanes of the QEW, which has a posted speed limit of 100 kilometres.
Second, the car she passed was a fully marked OPP cruiser from the Niagara detachment.
“She was driving a white 2015 Mercedes at about 2:15 a.m., and the officer was travelling at regular patrol speed,” said Const. Rob Knight of the OPP’s Niagara detachment.
“The car completely overtook him. He locked in the speed on his radar. We don’t have an officer in our detachment that hasn’t had this happen. It happens more frequently than we would like.
“It is lucky the officer stopped her before she injured herself or someone else. It’s not the Autobahn.”
The result of the incident on the QEW near Bartlett Road in the Town of Lincoln on Oct. 4, was a ticket for stunt driving and all that comes with it – a sevenday driver’s license suspension at roadside and a vehicle impound for seven days. She also had a date in provincial offences court.
“Sometimes you are going at a speed that is too fast for you to notice things,” Knight said. “I have had a couple of situations like this myself. There is danger
when it happens. Sometimes there is debris or dead animals on the road. There can be slower drivers. Sometimes they are going 80 km/h.
“There could be drivers travelling without their lights on. Maybe they just forgot.
“Or perhaps it is a rental car, and they are unfamiliar with the vehicle. I doubt I’ve gone through one night where I didn’t see at least one vehicle without its lights on.
“The QEW at Bartlett is darker at night than some areas of the highway and at speeds of 175 km/h, a driver won’t even notice a vehicle with no lights before you have hit it.”
There is also a financial consequence. In May The Standard reported on an 18-year-old woman from North York who was caught driving 209 km/h on the Niagara-bound QEW in a red
2016 Porsche Macan.
The OPP first received complaints from other drivers about a speeding vehicle on the QEW west of Casablanca Boulevard. The car reached Seventh Street before it was stopped.
The OPP charged the driver with stunt driving and impounded the vehicle for seven days. Police also gave her the standard seven-day roadside suspension.
After a recent trial, the justice of the peace also fined the woman $4,000.