Okotoks Municipal Enforcement pulled over a vehicle clocked at 128 km/hr in a 50 km zone Wednesday night (April 20).

The driver was headed north on Northridge Drive and was seen by a patrolling peace officer, who pulled the vehicle over onto Milligan Drive.

The Town of Okotoks posted about the incident on social media, cautioning residents against speeding and encouraging them to report excessive speeders.

Municipal Enforcement manager Peter Stapley says that kind of speeding automatically lands you in court.

"If a vehicle is driving up to 50 km/hr over the speed limit, there's a voluntary fine option payment and a demerit program that goes along with those fines. Once a vehicle is over 50 km/h over the speed limit, then the offence automatically becomes mandatory court with a summon, and the driver has to appear before a commissioner or a judge to speak to the offence."

In those cases, judges will consider a number of conditions in the case including road conditions, where the speeding was done, the speed of the driver, and the driver's reasoning.

Based on that information, judges will determine the amount of the fine as well as the length of the driving suspension.

Speeding in that excess both increases the likelihood of collisions, as well as the severity of collisions, says Stapely.

"The faster a vehicle goes, it's going to become harder for a person to control it. They have a reduction in their steering ability, they have increased braking distances, they have a decreased field of vision. Not only that, but the higher the speed, the effectiveness of the safety features starts to decrease. The airbags, the seatbelts, the guard rails, which, in turn, ends up resulting in a greater severity of injury or possibly death when a collision does happen."

According to Stapley, one in four drivers involved in fatal collisions in 2018 were driving at unsafe speeds.

Anyone wishing to report a speeding vehicle to Okotoks Municipal Enforcement can do so at (403) 938-8913.