South Shore Press Video Vault: Suffolk Driver Goes Full Throttle

A Major League fastball. Category 2 hurricane winds. A screaming NHL slap shot.

Those are the kinds of speeds a Suffolk County driver was flirting with when police clocked the vehicle barreling along at a staggering 106 mph in a 55 mph zone.

That’s 51 mph over the limit.

Suffolk County Police released body-camera footage on their Facebook page of the recent traffic stop, showing an officer confronting the motorist over the eye-popping speed.

“We’re doing 106 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone,” the officer can be heard telling the driver.

Just how fast is 106 mph?

The hardest Major League fastballs ever recorded have reached roughly 105 to 106 mph. Category 2 hurricanes pack sustained winds between 96 and 110 mph. The hardest NHL slap shots have also broken the 100 mph barrier.

A typical skydiver falling belly-to-earth reaches a terminal velocity of roughly 120 mph, meaning the Suffolk motorist was approaching skydiving speed while still on pavement.

And a cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, tops out around 60 to 70 mph. The vehicle was traveling roughly 40 mph faster.

During the stop, the officer also questioned why the driver pulled to the left rather than the right and asked whether the vehicle had an exemption for its tinted windows.

“No, I don’t have a tint exemption at the moment,” the driver responded.

The officer indicated the motorist was being cited for speeding but not for the other issues raised during the stop.

“Safety’s what we want at the end of the day,” the officer said.

Suffolk Police later used the stop to remind drivers that even if a vehicle doesn’t feel like it is moving dangerously fast, watching the speedometer remains the driver’s responsibility.

“At high speeds, there is little room for error and even less time to react,” police warned.

Their final message was even simpler on the Suffolk County Police Department at the end of their Facebook post:

“Slow down, Suffolk.”