Vic: Police blast biker caught going at 140km/h over speed limit
28 Jan 2009 1:08 PM
MELBOURNE, Jan 28 AAP - An unlicensed motorcyclist who roared along a suburban road at more than 140km/h above the speed limit was lucky to have been caught, and not killed, police say.
The 24-year-old was caught riding his unregistered Yamaha R1 1000cc motorbike at 212km/h in a 70km/h zone in the Melbourne suburb of Altona.
The R1 is one of the fastest motorbikes on the market.
To ride at such a speed was "ridiculous," Hobsons Bay Traffic Management Unit's Senior Constable Marcus Owen said.
"We don't get that every day. You are looking at three times the speed limit and if you were there would have been lucky to see it going past," he said.
"You would notice it on the freeway let alone in a 70km/h zone.
"It's incredible with the amount of media publicity that these incidents attract that people continue to flout the law in such a way.
"We don't always get good results and catch people in the act like this guy, who was caught and I would prefer not to be cleaning up the aftermath that we often see."
The rider was caught on Sunday in Grieve Parade by police using a laser speed detection gun and may have been travelling even faster before he was caught, Const Owen said.
"He continued down the road at a fair click before he got to some curbs and a roundabout and had to slow down, and that's when the crew caught up with him," he said.
The rider, from Newport in Melbourne's south-west, was stopped just metres from where a traffic accident claimed the life of a motorist last month.
In that incident, another young driver, a 20-year-old man, collided with a truck when he was speeding.
"There's flowers wrapped around a pole just up the road and yet we have people on our roads that are still willing to put their life, and the lives of others, at risk for the sake of a thrill," said Sergeant Phillip Holian, who attended the December 10 fatal smash.
"At those speeds you can lose control in an instant and there is little chance of recovery should a collision happen.
"We don't want to be the ones to notify a family their loved one has died in a high-speed collision."
The biker, whose licence had been suspended, will be charged on summons with various traffic offences including exceeding the speed limit, police said.
