“That is absolutely ridiculous!”
That’s just one of the things an arresting deputy had to say to the driver of a BMW who was clocked going 176 mph on Interstate 5 near Portland last week. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office released the video of the interaction Monday.
“176 miles an hour,” Deputy Craig Wellhouser is heard saying on the video. “That is absolutely ridiculous. 176 miles an hour,” the deputy says in the more than four-minute video.
Wellhouser says seeing triple-digit speeds on his job are becoming all too common.
“I can pretty much go out on Interstate 5 almost every night and get somebody doing 100 miles per hour plus,” Wellhouser told Central Oregon Daily News Monday.
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It happened last Wednesday, May 17, at 12:32 a.m. on I-5 near Highway 217, southwest of Portland. The sheriff’s office said the deputy allegedly heard and saw a 2016 BMW M3 headed south at high speed. The deputy pulled out his Lidar to clock the BMW doing 176.
Another deputy further south on I-5 saw the BMW take an exit. The sheriff’s office said both vehicles caught up to the car, stopped it at an off-ramp and pinned it in.
The video shows Wellhouser ordering the driver — identified as 19-year-old Milo Schneider — to put his hands outside the car. Schneider is informed he’s being arrested for reckless driving.
Wellhouser tells Schneider that he’s been in his job for 25 years and never spotted anyone driving at that speed — later stating that the previous high speed he encountered was 150 mph.
“Do you not cherish your life or anyone else’s?” he asks Schneider. The driver replies that he does.
What wasn’t heard on camera was Schneider admitting that his speed reached 183 mph, the sheriff’s office said.
“Your car’s getting towed. That’s the least of your problems at this point,” Wellhouser says on the video.
At 176 mph, the speed is a record for a Washington County arrest — possibly even a state record.
Here’s some perspective: 176 mph is faster than the maximum cruising speed of a Cessna Skylane single-engine prop airplane. That’s 145 ktas (Knots True Airspeed) — which is roughy 167 mph.
Later in the video, Wellhouser and Schneider calmly talk as the driver is taken to jail. That’s when the deputy explains the gravity of traveling at that speed.
“At that speed, you’re almost traveling almost a football field a second,” Wellhouser says. “The average person takes one second to react to anything happening in front of them. So, if a guy is 75 yards in front of you and shifts over — it’s over. It’s over. Because he’s going to see you 75 yards back not knowing you’re coming out, 176 miles an hour. Because he’s going to see your way back there because it’s just light and dark, right? And he’s going to shift over and it’s over.”
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Wellhouser is part of the sheriff’s department’s accident investigation team.
“A crash scene that’s going to extend a quarter mile plus of car parts and body parts,” Wellhouser told us. “There’s no good outcome. You know he’s a young kid and I think some of these kids play video games and you hit reset. There’s no reset in this. It’s game over and it’s for life.”
Wellhouser says he hopes he never sees a speed like this again.
“I think I kinda caught the mystical speed unicorn,” Wellhouser said.
Wellhouser suggested to Schneider that the place for speeding like that is PIR (Portland International Raceway).
“That’s where it’s designed for. The track’s designed for it. There’s no animals. The whole thing’s high-fenced, you know. It’s a controlled environment. But I-5, it’s not a controlled environment,” Wellhouser told Schneider in the video.
Schneider responds, “You are right.”
Reckless driving is a Class A Misdemeanor punishable by up to 364 days in jail, a fine up to $6,250, or both. It would be determined in court whether Schneider will be found guilty and what punishment he’ll receive.
