A Burlington motorcyclist may be the most spectacular catch of the Operation Impact holiday highway traffic safety blitz so far, having been clocked at almost 100 kilometres per hour over the speed limit.
“At about 1:30 p.m., an OPP officer measured the speed of a motorcycle driving northbound on Highway 6 near John Munro Airport in Hamilton,” the Ontario Provincial Police said Friday in a news release.
He found the motorcycle to be travelling 176 km/h – which is 96 km/h over the posted speed of 80 km/h.
Robert O. Walker, 37, of Burlington has been charged with stunt driving by excessive speed and operating a motor vehicle without insurance.
He is to appear in Hamilton Traffic Court on Nov. 23.
“He was very co-operative. I think he was just accepting of the whole situation,” said OPP Const. Graham Williamson, who besides being a highway safety division media spokesperson, was the arresting officer in this case.
“People get like that when they know what they’ve done,” he said with a laugh.
Those charged with stunt driving face a seven-day licence suspension and a seven-day seizure of their vehicle.
Kathy Khalessi, a 44-year-old resident of Irvine, Ca., is also facing a stunt-driving charge. She was clocked doing 159 km/h on Highway 401 in the Chatham-Kent area Friday morning.
No allegations against Walker or Khalessi have been proven in a court of law.
The OPP said Operation Impact is a nation-wide initiative meant to keep the highways safe during Thanksgiving long weekend holiday travel.
The priorities for police are:
- impaired drivers
- aggressive drivers
- seatbelt violations
So far in 2010, there have been 243 deaths on OPP-patrolled highways, compared to 236 by the same time in 2009.
Williamson said as of mid-afternoon, there have been some personal-injury accidents, including one on Highway 403 near Burlington that left three people with non-life-threatening injuries.
But if people buckle up and obey the highway laws, they should have a very safe weekend on the roads, he said.