$1,400 in Speeding Tickets ... In Less Than 4 Hours?

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[editor's note: This story is a re-post of our very first story placed on SCF. We thought it was funny enough to bring back the memories from when we started the blog.]

A Chicago-area couple began the New Year by racking up an impressive $1,400 in speeding tickets.

Piotr Pac, 21, of Prospect Heights, Ill., had just gone to sleep after some late-night New Year's Eve partying when his girlfriend called at 4 a.m., the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Emilia A. Goralczyk, 18, of neighboring Mount Prospect, Ill., was at a party where she'd just had a fight with a friend. Being the chivalrous type, Pac offered to come pick her up — 180 miles away in Wisconsin Dells, Wis.

"I would do everything for her," he told the newspaper. But Pac's mission of mercy had to be executed quickly. He had exactly six hours to get to Wisconsin Dells and back — 360 miles round-trip — before he was due for work at Nordstrom Rack at 10 a.m.

So he got onto Interstate 90 and put the pedal of his 2004 Nissan Altima to the metal, and boy did the Wisconsin state police notice.

At 5:59 a.m., Pac was pulled over for doing 100 mph just north of the Illinois state line.

At 6:56 a.m., he was nailed doing 84 mph halfway between Madison and Wisconsin Dells.

At 7:28 a.m., the blue meanies busted Pac-Man for doing 77 mph in Sauk County, just outside Wisconsin Dells.

The Altima was pulled over a fourth time that morning, at 9:08 a.m., just north of Madison — but this time it was Goralczyk who was driving as Pac took a nap.

She proved to be even more of a speed demon than her boyfriend, clocking in at 108 mph.

"I don't even go that fast with the [emergency] lights on, unless it's a real bad emergency," said State Trooper Thomas Licari, who had just been joking with colleagues on the radio about being the next to pull over the Altima when Goralczyk went zipping by.

Total cost of the speeding tickets: $1,393, of which Pac is liable for $902, Goralczyk for $491.

Pac took it in stride. Informed Jan. 12 by the Journal-Sentinel that it was doing a story on his speeding spree, his first reaction was to whoop, "I'm famous!" He did hope his parents wouldn't find out, especially since his father put the car under his own name after Pac's insurance premiums came to $6,000 per year.

"My father kicked my ass" after an even more recent ticket in Illinois, he said, "so I can't tell him about this stuff in Wisconsin." Pac maintained that he's safe at any speed, having been driving in his native Poland since — he claims — the mature age of 9. Nevertheless, he's had to hire lawyers several times to fight his many traffic tickets and license suspensions. "You have to have an exciting life," he told the newspaper, "because [otherwise] life is boring."