(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State Patrol Sergeant Alex Dinkla says troopers have stopped motorists traveling at more than twice the posted speed limit on Iowa highways.  “Some of the speeds that we’ve actually tracked here: 164, 151, 142,” Dinkla says. “Those are actual speeds that everyday citizens, not in race cars, in ‘Plain Jane’ automobiles are driving and choosing to drive.” Iowa State Troopers practice driving and stopping at the Iowa Speedway in Newton, but Dinkla says the patrol’s sedans — Dodge Chargers — would never drive 164 miles an hour during a chase. “And so when people are driving that fast, that’s dangerous,” Dinkla says. Dinkla made his comments at Iowa P-B-S for one of this month’s episodes of “Iowa Press.”

Last year state troopers wrote over a thousand tickets to Iowa drivers clocked at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour. A bill to significantly increase the fines for excessive speeding has been introduced in the Iowa House, by a lawmaker who’s a state trooper. Representative Joshua Meggers of Grundy Center says he was patrolling a two-lane highway last summer and stopped a driver going 103 miles an hour. Data compiled by the Legislative Services Agency indicates the Iowa State Patrol, along with Iowa police and sheriff’s departments, are likely to issue between 10- and 11-thousand tickets this year to motorists driving at least 20 miles an hour over the speed limit this year.