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I once encountered a black cow standing in the middle of a multi-lane freeway at 2am. Perfectly straight, three lanes, no traffic - black cow / black road. At 55mph, you will not see something like that in time to stop. 55mph is a very reasonable, if not slow speed for such a roadway, even in foul weather. I wasn't driving, but I had been watching the road just as intently as the driver and neither of us saw the cow. It was a clear night too! Fortunately the cow was in the next lane, but how do you avoid stuff like that? Unless you drive at a walking pace, you can't.
All drivers regularly take for granted that the roadway is clear in front of them. We take for granted that somebody won't come shooting out from a side street. We take for granted that a spare tire from a big truck isn't lying in the middle of the road on a dark and rainy night. I damn-well know that 99% of drivers take for granted that the vehicle directly in front of them won't just smash the brakes at random, or that the large truck they're following isn't going to drive over a large object that most cars can't quite clear. (Even with instantaneous reaction time, two-seconds following distance still isn't enough to stop for that.) These risks are invisible and the only way to substantially mitigate them is to drive at an extremely slow speed. We compromise safety for speed. Everybody takes these risks. All of us. Even you.
...but it's okay. It's risk management. Driving at ANY speed is a calculated risk. Heck, just being parked on the side of the road is dangerous. Some people can't do the math - people like soccer moms in minivans driving at a mere 10mph in a parking lot where someone could back out of a stall at any moment - people who drive slower than surrounding traffic and create a moving hazard of themselves - people who have no idea what the safe limits of their vehicles are because they've never explored them. The margin of safety at 142mph with nobody around is approximately equal to the margin of safety at 60mph in heavy traffic, and I'd much rather be in a single-vehicle collision at 142mph than in a two-vehicle collision with a sports car and a big truck. The kid took a risk, but it's mighty presumptuous to declare outright that the risk was higher than any risks you or I take on a daily basis.
Speeding itself is not inherently dangerous. Based on the officer's actions [by not arresting him] it seems apparent that he felt that it was not terribly dangerous. Countless people have done the same thing, but you almost never hear about it because nothing happens as a result. (Well, I suppose a few kids end up with great memories that last a lifetime.) It took me years to purge myself of all the "speed kills" brainwashing I've received. I appreciate how objectively the original article was written, though I'm sure it'll only perpetuate this hysteria about exceeding some arbitrary number.
It sounds like this kid has already been convicted. The letter of the law is rubbish. From the available evidence, nothing he did requires any consideration by the spirit of the law.
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