I find the 60 km/sec number a little hard to credit. The escape velocity from the sun at the distance of the earth is 42.1 km/s, while the earth's orbital velocity is about 29.8 km/sec. Meteors and the earth do not collide “head on”, the meteors tend to orbit the sun in same direction as the earth. The motion of the meteor prior entering the atmosphere is almost perpendicular to the orbit of the earth and vector sum of their velocities would be about 50 km/sec, or a little less.
Viewing meteors from above the atmosphere does give confirmation to the experiments of a couple of 19th German amateur astronomers, who observed a meteor shower from points about 100 kilometers apart and correlated their observations to show that meteors occur about 100 miles above the surface of the earth. They did this by comparing the angular distance between the centers of the trails to well know stars and noting the changes between the two stations. (Tycho had famously demolished the long held belief that comets were atmospheric phenomena by demonstrating that they exhibited far less diurnal parallax than the moon, and were, therefore, much further away.)
From jpl.nasa:
Perseids
Meteor Velocity: 61 kilometers (38 miles) per second
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-119
“you’re more likely to see twice as many meteors per hour in the predawn hours as compared to the evening hours. This is due to the fact that during the pre-midnight hours we are on the “trailing” side of the Earth, due to our orbital motion through space.
So any meteoric particle generally must have an orbital velocity greater than that of the Earth to “catch” us. However, after midnight when we are turned onto the Earth’s “leading” side, any particle that lies along the Earth’s orbital path will enter our atmosphere as a meteor.
As such, objects collide with our atmosphere at speeds of 7 to 45 miles (11 to 72 kilometers) per second, their energy of motion rapidly dissipates in the form of heat, light, and ionization, creating short-lived streaks of light popularly referred to as “shooting stars.””
http://www.space.com/12478-minor-meteor-showers-summer-skywatching-tips.html
Comet Swift–Tuttle (formally designated 109P/Swift–Tuttle)
It is the parent body of the Perseid meteor shower, perhaps the best known shower and among the most reliable in performance. [5]
An unusual aspect of its orbit is that it is presently captured into a 1:11 orbital resonance with Jupiter; it completes one orbit for every 11 of Jupiter.[6]
The ephemeris is available from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory [1], although it is not listed in NASA Close Approach Tables [2] of Near Earth Objects
Potential threat to Earth:
"The comet is on an orbit which puts it close to the Earth and the Moon.[7] Upon its 1992 rediscovery, the comet's date of perihelion passage was off from the then-current prediction by 17 days. It was then noticed that, if its next perihelion passage (August 14, 2126) was also off by another 15 days, the comet would very likely strike the Earth or Moon. Given the size of the nucleus of Swift–Tuttle, this was of some concern. This prompted amateur astronomer and writer Gary W. Kronk to search for previous apparitions of this comet. He found the comet was most likely observed by the Chinese in 69 BC and AD 188, which was quickly confirmed by Brian G. Marsden.[8] This information and subsequent observations have led to recalculation of its orbit, which indicates the comet's orbit is very stable, and that there is absolutely no threat over the next two thousand years.[9] Astronomers believe that in the 2126 pass it will likely be a great naked-eye comet like Hale–Bopp.[3]
A close encounter with Earth is predicted for the comet's return to the inner solar system in the year 4479, around Sept. 15; the closest approach is estimated to be 0.03–0.05 AU, with a probability of impact of 1×10−6.[6] Subsequent to 4479, the orbital evolution of the comet is more difficult to predict; the probability of Earth impact per orbit is estimated as 2×10−8.[6] As the largest Solar System object that makes repeated close passes of Earth, and which does so at a relative velocity of 60 km/s,[4][10] leading to an estimated impact energy of ≈27 times that of the K–T impactor,[11] Comet Swift–Tuttle has been described as "the single most dangerous object known to humanity".[10]"
Thanks!