Ontario police charge 19-year-old with stunt racing after going 308 km/h

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TORONTO (680 NEWS) — A 19-year-old is facing charges after Ontario police clocked him doing more than 300 km/h on Queen Elizabeth Way.

“I’m pretty much speechless on this one,” said Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt while explaining how the teen was going triple the speed limit on a stretch of highway near Dorval Drive in Burlington around 10 p.m. Saturday night.

“Unbelievable speeds. We’re talking 191 miles an hour, 85 metres a second, 280 feet per second,” said Schmidt. “This is the fastest speed that I’ve ever heard of.”

The driver has had his license suspended and the car impounded for seven days. He is also facing charges of street racing and dangerous driving, which Schmidt says carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine.

“This is absolutely egregious for anyone to be going those kinds of speeds,” said Schmidt explaining how potentially fatal this could have been had the driver lost control and been involved in an accident.

“If a car was to make a lane change …you’re covering almost a football field in one second. By the time this driver is coming up on them they may not have the ability to adjust their driving, change lanes, slow down, hit the breaks – do anything to avoid a collision,” he said.

“This could have turned into the most devastating fatal crash ever. This vehicle would have been completely destroyed.”

Police forces across the city and province say stunt driving and street racing has been on the increase since the COVID-19 pandemic started due to the lack of traffic on the roadways.

Schmidt says since May 1, the OPP have charged approximately 150 people with street racing just in Toronto region alone.

“That’s about 15 cars being taken off the road every single day for street racing/stunt driving,” he said.

Schmidt points out that the incident comes ahead of Canada Road Safety Week, an enforcement-driven initiative designed to increase public compliance with safe driving measures across the country.

Toronto police, meanwhile, are investigating after dozens of vehicles congregated in a Toronto parking lot in the west end of the city before allegedly racing along nearby streets and highways.

Const. Alex Li says there were between 150 and 200 vehicles in the lot before officers arrived on Saturday at about 11 p.m.

They were reportedly doing donuts and other stunts in what Li describes as being like a scene out of “Fast & Furious”.

Li says that when officers got to the scene, the vehicles sped off and allegedly raced on different highways.

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report

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