Minn. Man Clocked @ 86 MPH on Closed, Snow Covered Interstate

Patrolling a section of Interstate 94 that had been closed because of treacherous road conditions, a Minnesota State trooper was stunned Sunday to see a car hurtling down the snow-covered highway east of Fargo.

Clocked at 86 miles per hour on a day when cars were still sliding into ditches across northwestern Minnesota, Dimitri Kilin said he was just trying to catch an airline flight out of the Twin Cities.

"How he didn't roll or put his car off into the ditch I don't understand it," said Minnesota State Patrol Sgt. Jesse Grabow. Kilin didn't pose a danger to any other driver on the deserted highway, but Grabow pointed out that snowplows were out. "Those guys are under the assumption that they have the entire freeway closed to do their work and get these routes open up and then some guy comes smoking along like that."

The 100-mile stretch between the Fargo-Moorhead area and Alexandria is shut down a couple of times each winter because of poor road conditions, Grabow said. Electronic crossing guards, barricades and sometimes just a big pile of snow are used to block the entrance ramps during the closure. During the past four days, the troopers stopped at least 13 people who drove on I-94 despite the barricades.

It was a big mound of snow that first prevented Kilin from entering the interstate in Moorhead, he said. But he said he drove through Fargo, got onto Interstate 29 and then found his way onto Interstate 94. "I did not know the road was closed," he said in a telephone interview on Monday.

He's pretty sure he saw other cars on the road. But he and his wife were in a hurry to catch their flight to Albuquerque for a wedding. He already had lost time by waking up late.

Once he got on I-94, he said the road conditions seemed fine to him. "It wasn't perfect like it is in the summer," said Kilin, 36, of Fargo. "I was in full control of the car."

But Grabow has some stats that show just how bad the road conditions have been in northwestern Minnesota. Between the start of the storm on Thursday until Monday morning, the State Patrol reports 621 vehicles slid off the road, 67 vehicles crashed, including 32 rollovers, and two semi-trailers jackknifed. Eleven people suffered minor injuries.

"Driving conditions were the worse I've seen in a long time," Grabow said.

Kilin was cited for speeding and faces a minimum fine of $125.

Even a hefty fine might be a bargain, Kilin said. New plane tickets would have set him back more if he and his wife missed their flight, he said.