I covered the funeral of Illinois State Police trooper Brian McMillen, who was killed in an early morning crash east of Springfield. The funeral was in Taylorville on Oct. 31, 2007. I shot video, and SJ-R photographers Justin Fowler and T.J. Salsman shot stills. The result was this touching tribute.
Tag Archives: Illinois State Police
Collision with train leaves teenager dead
I don’t believe the family of this Girard teenager ever got the answers they were searching for about how this crash happened. The mother wore her son’s class ring on her finger as she took me and photographer Shannon Kirshner to the crash site in October 2007. I’ll never know how she managed to keep herself together.
Mourning ‘Munchy’ / Girard teen died when car he was driving was struck by train
Oct. 29, 2007GIRARD – To his friends, Matt Munchalfen was “Munchy,” a shy, all-around good guy who had a secret crush on a popular schoolmate. To his neighbors, he was the dependable young man who showed up to cut their grass, rake their leaves and put up riprap at their lakeside homes.
His younger brother and sister could count on Matt for rides and advice. Matt’s father expected his son to take over the family electrical business. He already could fully wire a garage.
And Matt was his mother’s first-born child. Despite being a busy 19-year-old, he often stopped by her bedroom to chat whenever he returned home from a night out with his friends.
“I didn’t know how many people Matt touched, how many people he knew,” Joanne Munchalfen said last week. “This is something that hits close to home for all parents.”
Matt, a senior at Girard High School, died Oct. 13 when an Amtrak train struck his sport utility vehicle as he crossed a track on Greenridge Road two miles from his home.
There is no clear-cut answer for why the accident happened. Matt was killing time that morning. He was to meet his dad at the shop, and they were to work on a deck project. His father was running late, and it was raining. Joanne Munchalfen believes he was going to a popular four-wheeling spot to see if any of his friends were out riding.
He headed west on Greenridge Road, a crossing with only a yield sign that last week was partially obscured by overgrown tree limbs.
Several factors make the crossing unique. The railroad track runs parallel to Illinois 4. When heading west on Greenridge, drivers must stop just on the other side of the track for a stop sign at the highway.
To the north, the track is a double track. Once it makes a slight curve about a half a mile north of the crossing, it narrows to one track. A large steel maintenance or utility box for the railroad sits north of the crossing on the east side of the rails and partially obscures the vision of drivers heading west on Greenridge.
There are no flashing lights or crossing arms at the intersection.
Joanne Munchalfen said she was told there was a vehicle sitting on the other side of the tracks at the stop sign for the highway and that a second train was sitting where the double track becomes a single track.
She believes all those factors may have distracted her son and, combined with the lack of train warnings, contributed to him driving onto the track in front of the train.
Illinois State Police handled the crash investigation. A report does not note a vehicle sitting at the stop sign or workers on the track.
The southbound Amtrak, consisting of an engine and four passenger cars, was going about 78 mph. The conductor told police he blew the train’s horn upon approaching the crossing but the driver of the white Ford Explorer did not slow down prior to crossing the track.
The train dragged the SUV 2,100 feet before it could stop.
Matt’s cell phone was found at the accident site, and Joanne Munchalfen said she and her husband checked the call history but found no evidence that Matt was on the phone at the time of the crash.
“He was always my cautious child. He never took risks. He was just a good kid,” Joanne Munchalfen said. “They said he was looking south at the time. I’m hoping that’s the case, that he didn’t know what hit him.”
Joanne Munchalfen, who wears Matt’s class ring on her finger, is committed to getting out the word that drivers, especially teenagers, need to be more cautious around railroad crossings. She also hopes to get the attention of someone who can put up a more effective crossing signal at the Green Ridge intersection.
She also is concerned about Matt’s friends, who are going to the accident site to leave memorials for Matt.
“I just don’t want to see this happen to anybody else,” she said. “I was always worried about deer. I never in a million years thought about a rural railroad.”
Capt. Tim Reents, commander of the District 18 state police in Litchfield, said police try to educate young drivers about the dangers of railroad crossings.
“What I tell people about railroad crossings is even if they have warning lights or even if they have the cross arms that come down, don’t always trust those because they are mechanical devices. They can fail,” he said. “I would treat every train crossing as if there is a train coming. Slow down, turn the radio down, maybe roll the window down, look both ways, listen and just be very, very cautious.”
He said drivers also should be particularly careful at crossings where the railroad track parallels a highway, such as the crossing on Greenridge Road.
“A lot of times what will happen is that even though the track may parallel evenly with the road, those crossings will angle a little and you almost have to look back over your shoulder to see if anything is coming,” Reents said.
Reents said the state police review all collisions between vehicles and trains, and if they believe there is an issue, they alert the Illinois Department of Transportation.
“Our officers are pretty good when they go out and handle a crash, especially a fatal or a serious accident, if they start going to same place over and over again, they’re pretty good about bringing things to our attention,” he said.
“I think everyone would like to have something to put their finger on and say, ‘That’s why it happened,’ and a lot of times you can’t put your fingers on those things,” he said. “You can know the dynamics – how fast it was going, how far it traveled, the point of impact. You can do all those scientific things, but to know what was going on in people’s minds is difficult.”
Meanwhile, Joanne Munchalfen continues her search for answers and tells others to hug their kids often.
“It’s only been a week, and I think the thing my husband and I have noticed is how adult he really was. He would just take over things and do them,” she said, crying. “I think he was happy. He just had so many things going for him, and I guess that’s why it’s so unreal.”
Bullrunners speed by Springfield
I was at lunch with fellow reporter Sarah Antonacci one afternoon in July 2006, when we started noticing a few cars with numbers on them speeding south on Interstate 55. We saw more of them whizz by and began hearing unusual animated state police chatter on the scanner. Then we realized most of the numbered cars were luxury sports cars.
We pulled over at the Taco Bell on Toronto Road after finding a Lotus parked in the lot. The driver came out of the restaurant and talked to me about what was going on. Turns out it was a cross-country rally for the rich and famous known as “Bullrun.”
Passing through / Rally routes rich and famous down I-55
July 25, 2006Joe Talbot’s customized metallic blue Lotus looked a little out of place parked in the lot of Taco Bell on Toronto Road Monday afternoon.
After all, there aren’t many Lotuses in these parts. Same goes for Lamborghinis, Porsches and the multitude of other sports cars cruising down Interstate 55 Monday – a few of which reportedly were going faster than 100 mph, sometimes on the shoulders, and had state troopers scrambling to track them down.
Talbot’s was among the dozens of high-end luxury cars that raced through the Springfield area on Monday’s leg of Bullrun 2006, an invitation-only coast-to-coast rally that attracts the rich, the famous and a cast of “petrosexuals” – people obsessed with cars and motor sports.
Entry fees for the race are $14,000.
Among the celebrities reportedly participating in Bullrun this year are racer Mario Andretti, Olympic athlete Carl Lewis, actors Hayden Christensen, Corey Feldman and Corey Haim and possibly former Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman.
Participants left Times Square in New York City on Saturday and expect to arrive in Los Angeles on Saturday. They reportedly stay in five-star hotels, and the event’s parties are “legendary,” according to the event’s Web site at www.bullrun.com.
“Bullrunners” make their way from one checkpoint to the next and don’t know their destinations until they are handed a card each morning when they depart. The card lists an address, a destination city and the number of miles to get there. The rest of the navigation is up to them.
Talbot, a commissioning editor with British television network ITV, stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite, then hit the highway again. Destination: 1 Busch Plaza in St. Louis, also known as the Anheuser-Busch brewery.
“We try and drive responsibly,” said Talbot, who is from London. “Not that many of us know the speed limits. It varies from state to state. Occasionally, as many people do, we get a bit overexcited at times.”
Most of the participating cars were emblazoned with numbers on their sides and adorned with a variety of decals. Among the makes and models represented in this year’s rally are Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, Mercedes, Corvette, Lotus, Porsche, Ford Mustang, Chrysler PT Cruiser, Range Rover and BMW. A 1954 Studebaker Commander and a 1980s-model Suzuki SUV are among others in the running.
Tom and Rita Naylor of Stratfordshire, England, were driving car No. 48, a Buick Lucerne – not the sexiest car in the rally but certainly a reliable way to get across the country. Tom, a retired truck driver, won $30 million in a lottery in 2001. His personal cars include three Jaguars, a Bentley and an Astin Martin.
“It’s a great deal of fun. It’s not a race, it’s a rally,” he said, as he and Rita stopped to fuel up at a gas station near Illinois 108 outside Carlinville.
Though he hadn’t been driving as fast as the other participants and was consistently coming in last, he did manage to get a ticket for going 80 mph in a 60 mph zone early in the trip. He’s not worried about the fines, though.
“It’s only money at the end of the day,” he said.
Many of the drivers outfitted their cars with such equipment as police scanners, CB radios and radar detectors and jammers. They made sure they had cash, identification, vehicle registration information and proof of their vehicle’s ownership.
Most of the cars had cameras and video equipment to document the race. Videographers were among the group, and some of their footage is going to air on Spike TV, one of them said.
Talbot said there even is a helicopter with special camera equipment following the race from above.
“It’s an eclectic mix of people – fast cars, old cars, slow cars,” Talbot said. He added: “The best part of the rally is that it’s not about the cars. It’s about the people in the cars. There’s a real camaraderie.”
Most of the drivers had been pulled over at least once during the drive, according to Web sites dedicated to tracking the rally. Talbot said he’d been pulled over several times already but said the police had been very nice.
He added that the Illinois leg of the rally was “really boring,” “very flat” and the “worst part” of the race so far. He gave the leg between New York and Toronto a rave review.
District 9 Illinois State Police began receiving complaints about speeding sports cars with numbers on the side about 1:30 p.m. They received reports of cars going as fast as 140 mph. Most, if not all, of the drivers were slowed dramatically when they reached the construction zone at the Lake Springfield bridges south of the city.
By late afternoon, troopers had stopped two of the Bullrunners and issued them citations. District 6 troopers north of District 9 reportedly pulled over six drivers, and District 18 troopers to the south were made aware of the rally heading their direction. At least one of their troopers worked from an overpass, using a Lidar device to catch speeders.
Capt. Tim Reents of District 18 pulled over car No. 66 for going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone near Illinois 108. The same car was pulled over earlier near Springfield for having no visible registration.
“We can’t allow people to have an open race on the interstate highways,” he said.
Human cargo
Interstate 55 is a pipeline for many things, including smuggled illegal immigrants.
In monitoring jail booking sheets and federal court filings in 2005, I began to realize state troopers conducting traffic stops along the interstate near Springfield were finding a startling number of illegal aliens traveling in appalling conditions. Affidavits accompanying the federal charges told the stories.
Human cargo / Smugglers use I-55 as pipeline to Chicago for illegal immigrants
Nov. 13, 2005Picture this.
A Chevrolet Suburban hits the highway with 17 people piled inside. Most of the seats have been removed to allow more people to be crammed in.
No one is wearing seat belts, and the passengers – mostly Mexican citizens – are forced to squat below window level so no other motorists can see them.
The driver refuses to stop for bathroom breaks, so passengers must urinate in milk jugs or plastic windshield-fluid containers. If their bodily needs are any worse than that, they’re out of luck.
There might be one stop for food during the 1,800-mile smuggling trip, depending on the driver’s mood. He will remain at the wheel from Phoenix to the passengers’ destinations without napping. If he finally gets sleepy enough, he might ask another passenger to drive for a while. Neither has a valid driver’s license, nor does either have much of a grasp of the English language.
Think it’s a scene from the American Southwest? Think again. Illegal aliens are being smuggled through central Illinois every day, and the overloaded vehicles they’re riding in are a potential threat to motorists’ safety, officials say.
Interstate 55 is a popular route for transporting undocumented Mexican and Central American citizens from “load houses” in Phoenix to Chicago and various other destinations in the eastern United States.
During routine traffic stops in Sangamon, Logan, Macoupin and Montgomery counties between January 2004 and October 2005, Illinois State Police and immigration officials encountered more than 330 illegal aliens, according to numbers from the federal courts and officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“As far as I’m concerned, all the cases are mind-boggling. Human beings being treated as cargo is just beyond me or anybody else,” said Greg Archambeault, resident agent in charge of the Springfield ICE office.
“It’s so degrading to these people. I know they’re paying a smuggler to bring them up to the United States, but I don’t think they know what they’re getting into when they get into the back of a van with 16 other people, and they’re not allowed to stop to use the restroom or get food.”
Human smuggling organizations rake in $10 billion in profits every year, according to ICE estimates.
“The people that are being smuggled really are treated like commodities,” said Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for the Chicago ICE office. “It’s just a business to the smugglers. They really don’t care about human safety at all.”
Federal court filings show that drivers caught locally smuggling aliens, an aggravated felony, have been sentenced to an average of 13 months in prison followed by two to three years of supervised release. After they serve their time, they typically are deported.
The victims are not charged with a crime. They usually are sent to a local jail until they can be sent back home.
In each of the recent documented smuggling cases, the passengers or their families paid a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars to be driven to various destinations, mostly Chicago. Some, however, were going as far as North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and New York. The passengers often are expected to pay additional money once they reach their destinations.
The drivers usually are part of larger organizations that smuggle people through Mexico, over the border and into Arizona or California. Nearly every illegal passenger that’s been stopped during the past two years met up with the drivers at various load houses – usually a house, apartment or motel – in Phoenix.
Discovering a vehicle jammed full of hungry, frightened illegal aliens is nothing new for District 9 Illinois State Police. Master Sgt. Marke Bobbitt, a trooper for more than 20 years, has encountered smuggling vehicles on numerous occasions. The illegals usually are “very pleasant and very passive” despite the conditions, he said.
“When you stop them, any way imaginable of seeing people in the vehicle, you’ll see it. They’ll be squatting, lying down, underneath people’s feet. Usually the vehicles are way overloaded. That’s why when they’re in an accident, there are so many injuries, because there are so many people in there,” he said.
“We’ve seen women who’ve defecated in their pants, and it’s stained through because they won’t stop and let them out. You really feel bad for these people, because they want to get to the place where they have an opportunity to get the American dream, but to get there they’re having to endure these types of things … ”
Among the recent traffic stops that thwarted smuggling trips:
* Sept. 22. A trooper stopped a Ford van with Arizona plates near Lincoln for improper lane usage. Inside were 17 illegals.
The driver’s area was separated from the cargo area by a steel mesh divider, and a bench seat had been placed loosely at the rear of the cargo area. On the dashboard was a list with the passengers’ names, the amounts of money they owed, their destinations and points of contact to collect fees owed. The list indicated a woman already had been delivered to St. Louis and that passenger had owed $700.
Documents in the van indicated it had been driven approximately 65,000 miles during the previous 10 weeks. The passengers told authorities they had paid various smugglers in Phoenix, and several were going to pay additional money after arriving in Chicago, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Indiana and Maryland. The driver had a counterfeit Social Security card and a fake Mexican driver’s license. He was to be paid $1,000 upon returning to Phoenix after delivering all the passengers.
* June 22. A trooper came upon a Dodge Caravan with Wisconsin plates that had broken down along southbound Sixth Street near the Interstate 72 on-ramp. Inside were 11 illegals. The driver told authorities he had made arrangements with a smuggler in Arizona to drive the 10 passengers to New York City. The smuggler gave him a fake Mexican driver’s license and $500 for gasoline and food, the man said.
The passengers told authorities they paid smuggling fees ranging from $1,000 to $9,000 to be taken from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador through Mexico, across the border and to various U.S. destinations.
* May 19. A trooper stopped a pickup truck for going 70 mph on I-55 near Litchfield. Inside were 16 illegals. They said they had paid smugglers in Phoenix between $1,600 and $2,000 to be taken across the border and driven to Chicago and other locations. They said the driver stopped for food three times and only once for a bathroom break at a rest area. He told them to go to the restroom in pairs so they would not stand out. During the rest of the trip, he instructed them to use a jug, which originally contained window-washing fluid, as a urinal.
* March 15. A trooper stopped a minivan on I-55 near Williamsville for improper lane usage. Inside were 14 illegals. The two drivers told authorities they were going from Atlanta to North Carolina. However, the passengers said they were picked up at a load house in Phoenix. They said they paid varying amounts to smugglers in Phoenix and were going to pay additional money after finding work in Chicago.
* March 18. A trooper stopped a Chevrolet Suburban for improper lane usage and a defective windshield on I-55 at Toronto Road. Inside were 17 illegals seated on the floor and in the rear cargo area, and there were plastic jugs of urine inside. The passengers said the men were not allowed to get out of the van to use the bathroom during the 33-hour trip. The women were allowed to stop only once.
One driver told police he paid smugglers $2,200 to be transported from the border to Chicago via Phoenix, and that the smuggler provided the truck and a cell phone so he could make arrangements to have it picked up after getting to Chicago. The other driver said he crossed the border with four friends and they got lost in the desert for three days, where they met a group of 10. That group’s guide offered to smuggle him to Chicago for $1,000.
The passengers said they crossed the border together and paid various amounts of money to smugglers in Phoenix, and were going to pay more to the drivers when they got to their destinations. They were guided across the border by smugglers and taken to a load house in Phoenix.
Archambeault said there is no end in sight in terms of the number of smuggling loads coming through central Illinois. Illegal aliens are treated as a commodity who will go back to the same smuggling organization and pay more money to be taken across the border again, he said.
Bobbitt agreed.
“I think people would probably be very surprised if they knew the numbers of people we’re stopping. If I wanted to, I could stop illegals every night,” he said.
“In this day and age, you do not know who you’re encountering out there. Is it something where they’re looking for a better life and more opportunities? Or is it someone intending to do harm to the country? It’s an important issue, and it’s something Congress and the president will have to work out as far as what the policy will be.”
The Century Club – 100 mph drivers explain why they do it
This was one of my favorite research projects at the newspaper.
Robert Pope, a former managing editor at The State Journal-Register, read an article someplace about people who drive faster than 100 mph. He wanted to find out if there were locals who’d done it and ask them why.
The trick was finding them. I looked through circuit court records, but speeding tickets aren’t documented according to speed. One day I was on a ride-alone with a traffic deputy for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, and the subject came up. He explained to me under what traffic law a 100-mph ticket would be issued (speeding 40+ mph over the limit). Now I had a starting point.
The folks at the Sangamon County circuit clerk’s office were kind enough to give me a workspace in their office, and I started combing through the ticket files. I made notes on a yellow legal pad as I went along. Voila! I had a story.
From there I tracked down locals who’d been ticketed for driving more than 100 mph, and the result was a unique story about the so-called “Century Club.”
Century club / Since 2003, 124 motorists in Sangamon County have been ticketed for driving more than 100 mph
Aug. 1, 2005Jason Shephard doesn’t have a pilot’s license. But, man, can he fly.
Shephard, 21, drives a silver 1997 Chevrolet Corvette he’s had since April 2004.
He didn’t really set out to buy a Corvette, a car some associate with “old guys,” but the price was right, so he took it home. To curb those “old guy” assumptions, he got personalized plates that say “NOTDADZ.”
The kid’s got a sense of humor.
The Illinois State Police trooper who clocked him going 128 miles per hour on Interstate 55 just south of Springfield last fall had a sense of humor, too, later telling Shephard he should have asked to see his pilot’s license.
“When he stopped me, he said, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ I was hoping he got me after I slowed down, so I said, ‘Probably 90?’ He just laughed and said, ‘Try 128,’” Shephard recalled. “He could have arrested me right there. I really thought I was going to jail that night.”
Shephard, who was too embarrassed to mention the ticket to his friends and family at the time, is a reluctant member of what some call the “century club,” drivers who are cited for going faster than 100 mph.
Between 2003 and the beginning of July this year, 124 motorists were ticketed in Sangamon County for going 100 mph or faster, according to a review of tickets filed with the county circuit clerk. The clerk’s office, in all, processed 133,573 traffic tickets during that time.
Neither the circuit clerk nor local police agencies track how many drivers are cited for going 100 mph or faster. Speeding tickets entered in the court computer system indicate the increments of speed over the posted limit – driving 1 to 10 mph over the limit, 11 to 14 over, 15 to 20 over and so on. Drivers ticketed for going 100 mph or faster fall into the categories of either 31-plus or 40-plus over the limit, depending on where they were caught.
Among the review’s findings:
* Of the 124 “century club” tickets, 34 were written for driving 100 mph, nine were for 101 mph and 19 were for 102 mph. The rest were for driving 103 mph or faster, of which seven were issued to drivers speeding 110 mph or faster.
* Seventy-four percent of the drivers were men.
* The tickets show that 79 percent of those cited did not live in the area. Many were from Chicago, St. Louis or out of state.
* The average age of the 100 mph-plus motorist was about 26. The oldest driver cited was a 62-year-old Chicago woman in a maroon Lincoln who was ticketed for going 100 mph after she passed a state trooper on I-55 north of Sherman at 7:30 a.m. The youngest was a 14-year-old Chatham girl stopped by a Chatham officer for going 100 mph on Illinois 4 at the Interstate 72 overpass at 3:15 a.m.
* The majority of the stops, 91 percent, took place on interstates 55 or 72. Of those, 24 percent were between I-55 mile markers 104 and 110. The Sherman exit is at mile marker 105, and the Williamsville exit is at 109. The interstate becomes three lanes just north of Sherman.
* Thirteen percent were between I-55 mile markers 87 and 93. An exit for East Lake Shore Drive is at mile marker 88, and the South Sixth Street exit is at mile marker 92. And 10 percent of the stops were on I-72 between mile markers 107 and 115. An exit for Riverton is at mile marker 108 and one for Buffalo-Mechanicsburg is at 114.
* Predictably, state troopers made most of the traffic stops, 100 of them to be exact. The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office made 17. The rest were made by officers from Chatham, Divernon, Illiopolis, Southern View, Jerome and the Secretary of State Police.
* The stops took place all times of the day. Forty-five were during what is considered a typical police agency’s third shift, between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.; 42 were between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.; and 35 were between 3 and 11 p.m. The times of two of the stops could not be determined.
* The average vehicle age was a 1999 model. Colors varied: 20 black, 19 white, 18 silver, 15 red, 10 blue, 10 maroon, nine green and seven gray. The rest were other colors.
* Tickets indicate vehicle manufacturers but not necessarily the models. Of those that were stopped, 16 were Chevrolets and 15 were Fords. Most other makes were represented, as well as one Maserati and at least two motorcycles.
Shephard, of Springfield, ended up at the top of the list in terms of speed. At 128 mph, he was driving the fastest when stopped, followed by motorists going 124, 121, 118 and three who were stopped for going 110 mph. The rest were between 108 and 100 mph.
“I never drive like that going through town or when other people are around because you never know what people are going to do. I just happened to be messing around that night and a cop was there,” Shephard said.
He recalled it was an unusually nice November night. Ordinarily, he puts his Corvette away for the winter, but he decided to drive it that night because the weather was so pleasant.
Nobody was on the interstate between Toronto Road and Sixth Street, and he thought maybe he could get home a little faster. By the time he saw the trooper parked in the median, it was too late. He hit the brakes and pulled over as soon as he saw the cop pull out.
A judge eventually fined him $500.
“I definitely don’t speed around town anymore,” he said, explaining that he sometimes drag races the Corvette at Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis to quench his need for speed.
James McKinney, 16, found himself grounded, car-less and face to face with a judge this spring after he was caught driving 108 mph on I-55.
McKinney drives a black 1993 Chevrolet Caprice Classic with a plush burgundy interior and a fancy custom wood steering wheel.
Early March 27, he and two friends decided to drive out to a teen hangout on Toronto Road to see what was going on. They didn’t stay long before turning around to get back on the interstate to return to town.
Three teenagers. Springtime. The open road. A sweet car with a V-8 engine. It wasn’t long before McKinney was cruising well over the 65 mph speed limit. A Sangamon County deputy clocked him on the radar doing 108 and pulled him over.
“I’ve slowed down since then,” McKinney said, recalling that the deputy didn’t say anything to him when he walked up to the car – just looked at him and shook his head.
“After he gave me the ticket, he was cool and started talking about my car,” he said. “That car rides so smooth on the interstate, you don’t even know you’re going that fast.”
His mother wasn’t quite as cool about the situation, he admitted. She grounded him for two weeks, took his car keys away and drove the Caprice herself; McKinney can’t stand other people driving his car.
His initial fine was $1,000, he said. The judge ordered him to read “Then Darkness Fled: The Liberating Wisdom of Booker T. Washington” and pay $150 instead. McKinney said he read the book but couldn’t pay the fine, so the judge gave him 30 hours of community service and two years’ probation.
District 9 state police trooper Vince Fisher, who also is a safety education officer, said driving more than 40 mph over the speed limit is a Class A misdemeanor, meaning that, depending on the circumstances, an officer can arrest drivers going that fast and take them to jail.
Fisher has seen pictures of cars that wrecked going 100 mph.
“They’re not even hardly recognizable as cars. It just looks like somebody took it and smashed it up into a little ball,” he said. “Usually the cars come apart and everything else does, too, including the people inside the car. Your chances of survival are real slim because you’ve got such dynamics involved. It creates thousands and thousands of pounds of force.”