A Springwater, Ont. man is facing charges for allegedly driving 208 kilometres per hour on Highway 400 while impaired.

The OPP said Monday in a news release that an officer out operating a radar gun on the highway near Innisfil observed a car "travelling northbound in the left lane at a high rate of speed.

"The officer locked in a speed of 208 km/hr and proceeded after the Toyota Corolla. The vehicle crossed over all three lanes exiting at Mapleview Dr. and then proceeding through a red light," police alleged.

"The officer activated his emergency equipment and the vehicle was stopped."

Upon speaking to the accused, the officer noted the smell of alcohol coming from the driver's breath, it said.

"The accused was arrested for impaired driving and transported to the Barrie OPP detachment for breath tests," it said.

Patrick Robinson, 28, is facing charges of stunt driving, impaired driving and driving with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol in his bloodstream.

His vehicle has been impounded and a 90-day suspension of his driver's licence has been imposed.

Robinson is to appear in a Barrie court on May 4.

The alleged speed in this case is not a record. OPP officers clocked someone doing 250 kilometres per hour on Hwy. 400 in early March and a teen doing 194 km/h on Hwy. 410 on March 18.

Earlier this winter, Toronto police nabbed an allegedly impaired driver who was doing 231 km/h on the DVP.

Sgt. Dave Woodford told ctvtoronto.ca that high-speed driving in the 200-kilometre-per-hour range is dangerous for both the driver and anyone else on the road -- and that's without adding impairment by drugs or alcohol to the mix.

"You can't stop on a dime at those speeds," he said.

Often, the offending driver rear-ends someone because he suddenly comes into traffic and can't slow or manoeuvre, Woodford said.

Fortunately, the highway was relatively empty at the time of this latest alleged instance of stunt driving, he said.

The location isn't that far from where Barrie trucker David Virgoe died in 2007 after speeders cut off his rig.

Woodford said that all things considered, "it hasn't actually been too bad" this spring with respects to occurrences of stunt driving.

"When we started out on stunt driving, we were averaging 40 per day. Now we're down to 20 a day," he said.

The OPP is trying to maintain a visible presence on the highways and trying to continue its educational efforts through the news media, Woodford said.

If members of the public see someone driving dangerously, they can either call 911 or *OPP (677) on their cellphone, he said.

If people can do so safely, they ask people to keep an eye on the offending vehicle and pass along its location, make, colour and licence plate number if possible. OPP officers will then intercept the vehicle, he said.