Published August 22, 2003 ED22A
The country highways near Trent, S.D., can be a driver's paradise on an August afternoon. They're two-lane, mostly devoid of traffic; straight, dry and smooth; spared from monotony by gently rolling hills. They bisect a gorgeous green and golden landscape, and bake under a blazing blue sky.
Who could be bothered with a stop sign and the speed limit on such a road, on such a day? Not Bill Janklow, not last Saturday. The congressman and former governor did what more than a few drivers have done at the junction of County Rds. 13 and 14. Janklow sped through the two-way stop at the intersection, doing 70-75 miles per hour on the 55-miles per hour road. Then came a violent thump just behind his left shoulder. He braked, stopped 300 feet later, and found motorcyclist Randolph Scott, 55, of Hardwick, Minn., dead in an adjacent field.
A terrible accident? Terrible, to be sure. Janklow likely will also say that his speeding and failure to stop were accidental, a momentary lapse, the product of the mesmerizing effect of abundant blue, green and gold.
But there is a difference between a driver's singular error and habitual, intentional misconduct, and there is reason for prosecutors to consider whether the latter was in play when Scott's motorcycle and Janklow's Cadillac collided.
Janklow's long record of accidents and speeding violations suggests an attitude of disregard, or even disrespect, for certain rules of the road.
For much of the 63-year-old's adult life, one speeding ticket soon followed another. He racked up 12 violations just between 1990 and 1994, while he was out of office. The tickets suddenly stopped when he was about to be elected governor for the third time. It's fair to wonder whether, at that point, he stopped speeding, or the state patrol lost interest in ticketing him.
Confident that he would pay no political price for an offense he apparently considered trivial, Janklow spoke openly about his heavy foot during four terms as governor. He even made reference to it in two State of the State messages. Fast driving seemed to be part of the persona Janklow sought to present to voters -- "Wild Bill," tough, independent, swashbuckling, disdainful of government's restraint on personal liberty.
The idea that breaking the speed limit is an acceptable assertion of personal liberty is not unique to Janklow, or to the wide-open spaces of South Dakota. It runs deep in American popular culture. Plenty of drivers display the same attitude on Twin Cities freeways every day. Many people who conscientiously obey other laws think nothing of exceeding the speed limit, or sliding through stop signs when traffic is light and no police car is in sight.
The shame and sorrow Janklow has known since Saturday, and the criminal and political consequences he must now face, ought to speak to every driver: Highway laws are laws, the same as any other. Whether you're driving in the Twin Cities or Trent, ignoring them isn't cool. Too often, it's deadly.
The quote I heard was something to the effect that as long as he was only fined he'd pay his fine and keep speeding. He'd only consider not speeding if he was facing jail time. Nice attitude. He won't be speeding anymore, I guess.