Most roadside interviews involve some back-and-forth. According to Arizona’s Highway Patrol, this one was settled in four words.
Shortly after midnight on June 13, an Arizona state trooper arrested the driver of a silver Chevrolet Corvette on Interstate 10 in Phoenix after following the car at more than 120 mph in a 65-mph zone, the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Highway Patrol division said in a June 26 post. While being arrested, the driver asked whether he could keep the car, because he needed it for work.
The trooper then asked the follow-up question the situation more or less wrote for him: If you knew you needed the car for work, why were you racing it?
“I know it’s dumb,” the driver answered, according to DPS.
The Corvette went to impound for 20 days.
A 120-mph race that began by slowing everyone down
The fast part of the night started slowly. DPS says the trooper was traveling on I-10 near 27th Avenue at about 12:30 a.m. when he saw two sports cars lined up side by side and holding back the traffic behind them. A short time later, both cars accelerated hard, in what the agency described as an exhibition of speed and street racing.
The driver, DPS says, described it as just a quick “pull” with the other car. In enthusiast shorthand, a pull usually means a roll race: two cars match speeds side by side, then both drivers floor it at once. On a public interstate, that rolling start has an unavoidable side effect. When two cars pace each other across the lanes, everyone behind them gets a front-row seat whether they wanted one or not.
The trooper followed the Corvette, according to DPS, clocking it at over 120 mph, or more than 55 mph above the posted limit, before pulling it over.
What the record shows, and what it doesn’t
Our account comes from the Highway Patrol’s own narrative and the two photos it released with it. The first, shown at the top of this story, shows the silver Corvette stopped at night, boxed in between two DPS vehicles with their emergency lights on. The second shows the driver, his face blurred by the agency, sitting in the back of a patrol vehicle. (Photo: Arizona Department of Public Safety, Highway Patrol Division)
DPS did not release body-camera or dash-camera footage with the post, so the exchange about the work car (including the “I know it’s dumb” line) is as the trooper’s agency reported it, not something we could hear for ourselves. The agency also did not name the driver.
Then there is the question of the other car. A race needs two participants, and DPS says two cars accelerated together. But the agency’s account says only that the trooper followed and stopped the Corvette. It does not say whether the second car was identified, stopped, or cited.
Why the answer about the car was always going to be no
Whatever the driver’s job was, the request he made at the roadside ran into Arizona law. Under the state’s vehicle-removal statute, A.R.S. 28-3511, an officer who stops a driver for racing or reckless driving, and who reasonably believes letting that driver continue would put others in danger, is required to have the vehicle removed and impounded or immobilized. The statute sets the hold at 20 days.
In other words, the trooper was not really in a position to grant the request, and the 20 days were not an improvised punishment. That’s the number the Legislature wrote down.
The charges
DPS says the driver was arrested on three counts:
- Criminal speeding, which in Arizona generally means driving more than 20 mph over a posted limit. It is a class 3 misdemeanor.
- Reckless driving, defined as driving with reckless disregard for the safety of people or property. A first offense is a class 2 misdemeanor.
- Racing, a class 1 misdemeanor, the most serious misdemeanor class in Arizona. A first conviction carries a minimum $250 fine.
These are allegations. An arrest is not a conviction, and because DPS did not name the driver, The Auto Wire could not locate a court case or its outcome.
One more line in the racing statute may matter more to someone who needs a car for work than the fine. On a first racing conviction, the law lets a judge suspend the driver’s license for up to 90 days. If that happens, the Corvette could come home from impound well before its owner is allowed to drive it to work again.
The takeaway, in the driver’s own words
DPS ended its post with a hashtag suggesting drivers take it to the track. The driver had already reached the same conclusion on his own, roughly one question into his arrest. He just reached it about 120 mph too late.
What’s the dumbest thing you’ve watched someone risk their commute car for?