Vikings aren’t the only speeding violators

Not all extreme speeders wear Purple on Sundays.

But they're mostly young, most are men and more than 650 of them have been convicted of topping 100 miles per hour over the past five years.

When they get busted, all they can do is give a cop the "you've-got-me" look.

"When you walk up to a vehicle that you stopped for traveling over a 100 mph, they have a guilty look on their face because they know they've been traveling that fast," said Minnesota State Patrol spokesman Capt. Matt Langer. "They know. You usually don't get arguments. You don't get them disputing the numbers. They know they've been had because it's so over the top."

Minnesota Vikings players Adrian Peterson and Bernard Berrian recently made headlines when they were busted for topping 100 mph on Twin Cities area roadways. And that means they both could lose their driver's licenses for six months under a 2005 state law designed to put the brakes on high-speed drivers.

Of the 679 Minnesota drivers that state officials report have been convicted under that law, only about 100 were women. Most of the serious speeders appear to be in their early 20s. Fewer teenage drivers, maybe because they are piloting the family's mini-van, seem to be hitting the high speeds. And extreme speeders among drivers in their 60s and 70s are few and far between -- but not unheard of.

Bottom line, however, is that the roads and the vehicles people drive aren't safe at such high speeds.

Although some drivers may be in an Autobahn state of mind, Minnesota's freeways have a top design speed of 70 mph, said Susan Groth, state traffic engineer with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Signs and guardrails are crash-tested for 60 mph.

Unsafe speed is a contributing factor in 20 to 30 percent of traffic fatalities in Minnesota, she said, and "speed is a huge issue in the severity of crashes."

She estimated that a driver going 100 mph would travel 700 feet before reacting and braking enough to come to a stop. Even a vehicle going 70 mph can fly across a freeway median in less than one second.

Cars are much easier to control at lower speeds, she said, but "with the newer vehicles, everybody feels a lot safer because they're a lot quieter and they go faster" without the steering wheel shaking. "But you still lose control as fast, and it's as serious," she said.

"You want to get a majority of people to be driving the same speed because that produces the fewest amount of conflicts," she said.

State Patrol and public safety officials say they can't point to particular "hot spots" for the "over-the-top" speeders. Usually, however, they can be found on the interstates, where higher-speed driving is accommodated and road access is limited, said state Department of Public Safety spokesman Andy Skoogman.

And so cops and cameras are on the lookout. In an effort to keep drivers off guard, the State Patrol enlists unmarked vehicles -- "like Dodge Chargers and Chevy Tahoes --things that are a little bit different, that people don't expect," Langer said.

If the State Patrol receives a complaint about a speeding driver, dispatchers use freeway cameras to pinpoint the driver and get troopers in position, Langer said.

State officials say the 2005 extreme-speed law has become an asset in slowing speeders. "It's a great law because it really drives home the point about of how dangerous it is to be traveling that fast," Skoogman said.

State Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, who helped pushed the law through the Legislature, doesn't see any reason to further tighten the screws on fast drivers. What's needed, he said, is a little public education, perhaps with the lead-footed athletes as teachers.

"What I'm really hoping for is that the situation with the two Vikings players brings the law to light and the reason why it's on the books," Murphy said. "You talk to State Patrol people and they'll tell you that speed is one of four factors that kills the majority of folks on the road."

Mix in drinking, distracted driving and no seat belts and "you have a deadly cocktail," he said.

Cars and bodies aren't designed for driving faster than 80 mph, Murphy said. "Car designs and safety features such as airbags and seat belts help absorb some of the energy in an accident rather than a body," he said. "But above 80, those things don't work anymore."

"You can talk to someone a lot better at physics than I am, but you take the human body and you run it at about 75 mph and then stop it all of a sudden, bad things happen to your internal components that, let's say, are really gross," Murphy said. "Most of the time you don't survive it. ... It's not pretty."

Staff writers Jim Foti and Sarah Lemagie contributed to this report. Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788