The good news is that the baby’s fine, the parents are very happy, and nobody got a speeding ticket. Or died in a fiery crash, for that matter. Still, I shudder when I think about how Jereme and Lisa Tauer of Hurley, WI delivered their newborn son in a car that was being driven at 90 to 100 miles an hour.

The story of a mother delivering in the car en route to the hospital is an old chestnut, I would imagine it happens with some regularity. But damn, I’ve been in a Dode Neon before. Zippy little cars, built cheap, kinda cute. Not the kind of vehicle I’d want to drive much over the speed limit, never mind forty miles over, even if my wife’s contractions were coming at ten minutes apart, like the Tauer’s were.

This happened way upstate in Wisconsin, and my first thought is that there are a lot of deer up there, and at 100 miles an hour, even without the distraction of a screaming woman in the midst of her labour, it would be difficult at best to avoid hitting a deer if it wandered onto the road.

I can see a little speeding to get the mother of your soon to be born child to the hospital on time, but that’s just excessive and unsafe. Then again, I’ve never been in that position, I can’t imagine what that stress and fervor must be like, and I’ve become kind of a wuss behind the wheel anyway. Would love to know what any of you fathers out there think. Is that kind of speed warranted? Or is it unbelievably stupid and dangerous, as I’m feeling?

Wis. Couple Have Baby at Nearly 100 Mph [hosted.ap.org]