‘People view I-20 as a race track,’ Kershaw sheriff says of lead-footed drivers

On Interstate 20 in Kershaw County, there’s speeding – and then there’s gunning down the highway at more than 100 mph.

The latter happens “all the time,” according to Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews.

“People view I-20 as a race track,” he said of the stretch of highway where the speed limit is 70. “If you’re going 75, you’re being passed by just about everybody.”

Just last month, Matthews himself chased a motorcyclist who passed Matthews’ unmarked car while traveling around 101 mph. Two weeks before that, another driver was arrested after leading deputies on a chase that reached speeds of 150 mph on a motorcycle that’s among those marketed as a “crotch rocket.”

The presence of law enforcement officers helps slow drivers down.

“But as soon as they get past the one, they’re going to speed up until they get to the next one,” according to Lance Cpl. David Jones of the S.C. Highway Patrol, which also helps patrol the state’s interstates.

“It’s an overall disregard for the traffic laws,” Jones said. “They don’t see it as a criminal thing – ‘I’m not really a bad person. I’m a good person. I just drive fast.’”

Speeding citations double

The psychology of speeding indicates that people who speed regularly will likely always speed, some experts say. Some traffic consultants say that traffic calming devices, which physically make drivers slow down, is one of the few ways to make a speeder take his foot off the gas pedal.

You can’t exactly do that on an interstate.

Are speeding tickets a deterrent?

Matthews said his traffic patrols are absolutely necessary.

After Matthews’ election in 2010 on a platform that included upping traffic enforcement, the Sheriff’s Office created a traffic unit that added six deputies to Kershaw County roads.

Patrol officers’ primary responsibility is to answer calls, but they have the ability to write tickets for traffic offenses.

Though he doesn’t normally go out on patrol, the sheriff himself sometimes makes traffic stops.

“It’s just in the course of driving around,” he said. “It’s not like I’m out looking for this.”

Speeding citations have increased to 5,117 in 2016 from 2,545 in 2011, according to numbers provided by the agency. DUI arrests also increased to 189 in 2016 and 228 in 2015, from 43 in 2011.

To anyone who says deputies are “trying to generate revenue” with speeding tickets, Matthews says he’s quick to note that deputies wrote 23,995 warnings from 2011 to 2016, compared to 23,888 speeding tickets in the same timeframe. And deputies often reduce the tickets.

“We’re trying to change behavior,” he said.

Before Matthews took office, deputies told him were “forbidden” to make traffic stops, he said, adding that the same was true when he was a Lexington County deputy in the late 1970s.

“Traffic stops by deputies were frowned upon because the sheriffs are elected, and if you write somebody a traffic ticket, they get mad and they won’t vote for the sheriff,” he said.

The public discussion over speeding, which drove much of the debate during the 2010 sheriff’s race, was visceral for many.

Matthews thought that might make him a one-term sheriff.

“But apparently the majority of the people are happy with what we’re doing because they ride the roads and they see how crazy people drive.”

‘They go too fast’

Jackie Bailey, 72, rides the roads and sees how people drive, which is why she hasn’t driven on I-20 but a handful of times in the past year.

Instead, she usually takes U.S. 1, which runs parallel to the interstate.

“I just can’t drive on I-20. They go too fast,” said Bailey, a Camden resident. “You look around, you’re getting the sheriff’s department on the radio and in the newspaper about stopping them on I-20 and (drivers) running.”

Yvette Neal, 54, said impatient drivers bearing down on her soon after she pulls onto the interstate.

“I get really intimidated for a minute and say, ‘I’ll go in the right lane,’” she said. “But I get in the right lane and there’s somebody behind me, trying to push me down (the road). Then I just say, ‘You have to go around me.’”

Yvette Gaskins, 27, of Camden, drives on the interstate two or three times a week.

“It’s terrible,” she said of fast or reckless drivers on the interstate. “That’s how accidents occur, especially the ones that are driving drunk and speeding.”

Gaskins said she knows someone who was arrested earlier this year for driving 120 mph on I-20.

“I like riding on 20,” she said. “I just try to drive as safe as I possibly can.”

‘I just drive fast’

So, why do drivers fly down I-20 at such high speeds in Kershaw County?

“I do not know why people feel like once they cross into Kershaw County, it’s OK to up the speed,” Matthews said. “I guess because it’s easy and rural, and people think they can get away with it.”

Daily traffic volumes on I-20 in Kershaw County range from an estimated 29,700 cars between Humphries Road and the Lee County line to 49,600 between Spears Creek Church Road and White Pond Road, according to 2016 traffic data from the S.C. Department of Transportation.

Speeding on I-20 is just as much a problem in Richland and Lexington counties as it is in Kershaw, the Highway Patrol’s Jones said.

But there’s a big “but.”

“When you get into counties like Kershaw or rural Aiken or Lexington, where traffic isn’t as congested, you see where people will creep up,” he said. “Oftentimes, when you go to do traffic enforcement, it’s easier to clock a car at 90-plus mph” in rural areas.

Out-of-state drivers are frequent offenders, the sheriff says.

“We don’t pick on them, but if they’re blowing through radar at 100 mph, they’re gonna get stopped,” Jones said. “And if they happen to be from out of state, then that’s what it is.”

Focusing patrols on certain roadways helps, he said. But the aggressive drivers eventually take to other, less patrolled roads.

“You could probably put a police officer every 5 miles,” Jones said.

This story was originally published July 29, 2017 at 2:29 PM with the headline "‘People view I-20 as a race track,’ Kershaw sheriff says of lead-footed drivers."