State troopers were in the air recently, flying speed enforcement above Interstate 80’s Waverly exit, when a car caught their attention.
They clocked its speed at 103 mph, and radioed a trooper who was waiting down the road with a $200 speeding ticket.
They saw another one — 103 mph. Then another — 104.
But that’s just becoming another day at the office for state troopers, who are ticketing a record number of drivers exceeding 100 mph — a trend that started during the early months of the pandemic.
“It’s definitely been an uptick, a major uptick since 2020,” said Lt. Kaleb Bruggeman.
In January and February of this year, they wrote 138 tickets to 100 mph-plus drivers, 60% more than the five-year average for the same period before the pandemic.
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And Monday, they wrote their 151st of the year; last year, it took until late March to reach that milestone, said patrol spokesman Cody Thomas.
The highest recorded speed so far this year is 140 mph, by a Buick Riviera troopers tried to pull over Jan. 29 near Grand Island. Instead of stopping, its 36-year-old Wisconsin driver sped up, leading troopers on a pursuit, and eventually rolling over stop sticks near Kearney, where he was jailed on several crimes.
Bruggeman didn’t have driver demographics, but said the high-end speeders are both Nebraskans and out-of-staters. Some are committing other crimes or are under the influence, but most are simply guilty of driving too fast.
“Just like any other speeder, some of them apologize," he said. "Some of them don’t have an excuse, some of them have an excuse, but whether it’s true or not we may never know.”
Troopers wrote most of the tickets along the I-80 corridor, though more than a dozen were issued in other parts of the state.
They noticed the increased speeds in March and April 2020, when they wrote 101 tickets for 100 mph or more in 35 days. They thought, at the time, drivers were taking advantage of roads that suddenly seemed wide-open because so many Nebraskans were staying home.
“That was what people were assuming. Now that there is more traffic and people are out and about again, the trend hasn’t changed,” Bruggeman said.
Patrol officials have another guess for the recent spike, he said, though it’s only a guess: That the mild winter has kept Nebraska highways relatively free of ice and snow, making it easier to speed.
Increased speeds are not specific to Nebraska; troopers in other states are reporting similar trends, Bruggeman said.
And earlier this month, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration released its 2020 traffic crash data report, indicating nearly 39,000 people died nationwide that year in traffic crashes — the most since 2007.
It also reported that fatalities in speeding-related crashes increased 17% over 2019.
That hasn’t happened in Nebraska, Bruggeman said. High speeds have not led to more deaths; in fact, traffic fatalities have declined since 2019.
But the numbers could easily change, he said. “With excessive speed, your chances of being in an accident increase. If there is any other driver error at all, it just magnifies it.”