Darwin Award Friday
While not successful in his quest to join the illustrious Darwin Award nominee brigade, this gent, who comes to us courtesy of the Pekin (IL) Times was clocked doing 140 mph on a motorcycle. For whatever reason, he stopped after blowing through a red light and attempting to evade when the police finally caught up to him:
Maybe Adam Lester really had to go to the bathroom.
That’s what Lester, 26, told the police officer who had just clocked his motorcycle at 140 mph Tuesday night on the McNaughton Bridge, police said.
He had to wait until the officer took him to police headquarters under arrest for speeding more than 40 mph over the limit and fleeing and attempting to elude police, both misdemeanors, as well as other traffic violations.
The officer also cited Lester, of 18384 Thompson St. in rural Pekin, for endangering the safety of a minor, the 16-year-old girl who clung to him as his passenger on the high-speed ride. That charge, however, was not included among those a prosecutor filed Wednesday in Tazewell County Circuit Court.
County court records show Lester has been cited for speeding three other times since Sept. 11. He also was convicted of speeding three times, along with other traffic violations, between 2008-10, records show.
Yup–bathroom break. Now personally, while he’s facing several charges, none apparently felonies at this point, if that were my 16-year old daughter, after I got done with her for hanging out with such a loser I’d be doing a little wall-to-wall counseling on his dumb ass.
Young men and speed is nothing new–hell, I don’t know how many guys we lost when I was but a young nuke in Orlando many years ago, and the resulting safety courses that came about as a result. More recently, a co-worker who SHOULD have known better was going home from work with a female passenger in excess of 120 mph in Exeter when he failed to negotiate a curve. The police started to give chase but failed to notice he hadn’t made the curve, and the bodies of he and his girlfriend weren’t even noticed until the next morning. If you feel so inclined to turn yourself into a greasy spot on the road, by all means, be my guest. But when you do it on a public road with other people on it, with a passenger, not only are you an idiot, you’re an asshole too.
Category: Darwin Awards, Dumbass Bullshit
…Many years ago at Shaw AFB, I had a guy on my crew – a Airman First Class two-striper who, of course, knew everything – who didn’t live on base, but actually stayed about 60 miles away with his girlfriend. Needless to say, when we had alerts he couldn’t make it in the required thirty minutes, but I was told we had no authority to make him stay in the barracks, and the kid took a great deal of enjoyment in telling people that he had the USAF by the b@lls.
A year or so after that we had a recall for real, and the kid was doing about 85 when he hit a tree almost in sight of the base. He was literally scraped out of the car. Bottom line is that young males in that age cohort believe themselves invincible, and nothing short of overwhelming force or sudden, violent death is going to change their minds.
Mike
I still like to go fast, but I agree that speed kills that’s why I never speed especially in residential areas. It’s a merciless equation (x)mph x weight x sudden stop = traumatic often fatal injuries.
I used to run Formula Vee a long time ago to go fast, and then I ran some limited stock Nascar vehicles at a local track in western Mass. But, if you like to go fast take a vacation to a racing school, you’ll be surprised how affordable it is and how much better a driver you will become when you understand all the mechanics involved. It also emphasizes where to go fast, which is on a race course not the local neighborhood streets.
“I feel the need…the need for speed…And 16 year old girls, even though I myself am 26.”
Maybe he can get into the Guiness Book of World Records as World’s Fastest Perv.
Some nitwit driving south on Lake Shore Drive hit 120 MPH (45MPH zone) with the police chasing him and the exits blocked. He got to the Oak Street Beach curve and slid right into it.
Sprayed bike parts everywhere. The motorcycle never recovered.
We lost one of our medics at my first National Guard Cav Troop to a motorcycle accident. He was in his early 20’s, nice guy, good soldier, good medic. They named the medics’ room in the armory after him. Nice gesture, but what a waste of potential.
I had a buddy years ago who was clocked doing about 120 in a Pantera. He knew he was caught and pulled over pretty quickly when the cops flashed their lights at him. But he figured he had nothing to lose at this point so he came out of the car with his hands up and said “Honest to God, officer. My mom is in the hospital.”
The cop, after he was done laughing, noted that he was brave to try that. And then he got cuffed.
My favorite Orlando crotch-rocket idiot was a guy who didn’t get killed.
NPS/NFAS was actually three buildings near the Bennett Street gate about 250-300 yards away from the base club, with Staff Parking on both sides of the “front” (NFAS) building. One wing of one of the NPS buildings faced one of the parking lots and you could see all the way down to the club.
Well, one night while we were doing after-hours study, a guy came in and announced someone had just wrecked a crotch-rocket in the staff parking lot. Turns out the 18-year old kid (who had started NFAS ONE WEEK prior) got tanked, borrowed his buddy’s bike, sans helmet, and when he cranked on the throttle, got dragged across the parking lot, grass, into the ditch, out of the ditch, and through the air, being stopped by the brand new, ONE payment made, staff member’s pickup truck.
When got outside, the bike was still there, lying behind the smashed truck, and the dumbass was being loaded into the ambulance for transport to the clinic (he broke his leg.) So not only did he get popped (and de-nuked) for DUI and many other issues, he got to spend the rest of his time before being ingloriously shipped out to the fleet having EVERYBODY calling him “Zippy.”
Oh, and the kid who owned the bike also got taken to mast for letting his buddy borrow the bike. Everyone lost on that one.
@6 Pax, Sparky can confirm that the Mass Turnpike from exit 3 to exit 2 is a 37 mile straightaway which at night is completely vacant….it makes a great place to be stupid in a car or on a bike…usually zero state police presence until about a mile away from either exit ramp..so you have a good 35 miles to play Speed Racer….one of the fastest production cars in America for under $25k was the Neon SRT, with its little turbo it was rumored to hit over 150mph….I don’t know about that but by the time I got to Blandford on the Mass Pike I can assure you the car reaches 135mph….
Speaking of high speed on a motorcycle, how fast does one have to be driving a bike to T-bone a van and flip the van onto it’s roof and kill the van driver? Happened the other day.
http://thedailynews.cc/2013/10/16/elderly-howard-city-man-dies-after-motorcycle-minivan-accident/
@9. I’m guessing that the biker weighed a whole lot.
@9–pretty fast. Another “Orlando story” was of the guy who was going down 436 so fast he blew through a red light AND the car trying to get through the intersection.
Air Cav–doesn’t have to if he’s got that velocity…remember that whole 1/2 MV^2 thingy…
And these morons are the reason why every freaking holiday weekend (hell for that matter whenever the command felt like it) we had to have idiotic safety briefings given by folks who didnt ride motorcycles……..
I lost my oldest brother on a bike, not even his fault, a drunk ran a red light. He was only 27, Vietnam Vet with the 101st, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, left a 2 year old daughter behind.
It’s hard to believe people actually go out and do 140 on a public road on a crotch rocket, at that point you are just a meat projectile.
One of my room mates in physical rehab was a 25 year old with 2 young kids who wrecked his bike while driving it home from the dealer. He was in a coma and in intensive care for a month. by the time he got to rehab he was only about 90 pounds. He had to wear a full torso cast, was fed through a stomach tube and couldnt speak. He was probably the only person on the floor that I thought was worse off than me.
NHSparky: another factor to consider is if the van driver saw the biker coming and was swerving. Doing that unbalances the vehicle and, if done hard enough, can actually lift a wheel or flip the vehicle without any contact in a top-heavy vehicle. I’m guessing the bike was screaming and the guy swerved, allowing the bike to impact him during the swerve when tipping would be easiest.
I had two high school friends on a bike, he wore a helmet, she didn’t, and a drunk pulled out in front of them. They both went flying over the car. He spend several months in the hospital, she died instantly.
A local cyclist got distracted and piled into the back end of a pickup truck. The bike ended up in the bed of the truck, and the cyclist ended up in the back seat, having smashed through the rear window of the cab.
I never did hear who freaked out worse in this accident, the driver or the cyclist!
@15, Hondo, the van had pulled into the intersection to turn left. As fast as the bike was going, according to the cop that took the report, the van driver didn’t have time to react, and it’s doubtful if he even saw the blur southbound that killed him.
Neighbor of mine is a Bandido, and he and I agree: if you ride, it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
Prime reason why I do not and will not buy a bike…my father was hit on the 405 Freeway by LAX by an off-duty LAPD motorcycle cop who claimed he never saw my father. Dirt bike is one thing. Street bike a whole ‘nuther.
Bikes are great and just as soon as they are built with four wheels, surrounded in steel, are at lest 4 feet wide and 6 feet long, and are equipped with airbags, I’ll consider getting on one.
@#19. Yeah, I had a bike back in the 70’s. Every motorcycle cop on my department told me that. That, and watching drivers ignore me as they turned left in front of me, or pulled out of driveways after looking me in the eyes convinced me that my time on a bike should be ended.