Corrected entry: When Jack is first running down the bus, trying to get on before the bus hits 50 MPH to arm the bomb, why wouldn't he shoot the tires out?
BaconIsMyBFF
10th Aug 2023
Speed (1994)
4th Sep 2021
Speed (1994)
Stupidity: Howard has the opportunity to shoot Jack at the end, but doesn't for no discernable reason; he's already committed multiple felonies, and shooting Jack would help cover his tracks all the better. In fact, he could even have just taken the cash onto the subway and left Annie behind while staying in full disguise as a cop.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Howard Payne's taunting dialogue in the subway station suggests that he wants Jack to live a long life, tormented by the fact Payne was able to beat him. He doesn't become intent on murdering Jack until the dye pack goes off, ruining the money. After that, he tries to shoot Jack but runs out of bullets, then decides to beat him to death with the detonator but fails.
19th Mar 2020
Speed (1994)
Plot hole: Payne's finger prints would've been all over the elevator, on his shotgun, and near the area where he killed the security guard as he was never shown wearing gloves. Since he was a former police officer, I would assume his prints would've been on file with the FBI and in a multitude of databases. You would think they would've been able to identify him much earlier in the movie than they did by running the prints through all databases of finger prints.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: IAFIS, the FBI fingerprint database, wasn't implemented until 1999. At the time this film was released, the LA police would have to individually run any prints found through the databases they wanted to search. Essentially, they would have to know beforehand that Howard Payne was a former Atlanta police officer or have made a wild guess.
23rd Jul 2018
Speed (1994)
Corrected entry: Soon after Jack gets on the bus, Howard can see the bus on the news. Why is the news at this stage covering this? The only thing that has been suspicious is someone from a car coming from a car onto a bus, but what has happened before this that makes this newsworthy? Looks like regular traffic is flowing up to this point. (00:44:00)
Correction: It is extremely common for news helicopters to cover rush hour traffic in major cities. If a news crew happened to be monitoring the freeway and noticed a pedestrian running to catch up to a bus, stop a convertible dead in its tracks, get in the convertible, catch up to the bus, the man jumps from the speeding car onto the bus at 50 plus miles per hour, and the car then crashes; it seems fairly normal for the bus to be on the news by this point. It certainly isn't a plot hole.
But for that scenario to work, not a single element can be missed. If the film crew missed any of it why would they film the bus?
I don't think if a single element was missed it wouldn't be newsworthy. If, for example they missed everything but a man jumping from a moving car onto a bus I still think that makes the bus newsworthy. That's really the only element that can't be missed by the news for this explanation to work. Payne himself comments on Jack's bravery in getting on the bus so that means he saw it. The only thing that could make the news following the bus a plot hole would be if Jack managed to get on without any fanfare at all, which of course didn't happen. It can't be a plot hole because it's not impossible for the news to have followed the entire incident of Jack getting on the bus. The fact that they may have been able to miss something doesn't make it impossible that they didn't.
16th Aug 2016
Speed (1994)
Corrected entry: "Supercop" Jack somehow never thought to have his boss cut power to the third rail (after slowing the train down rather than speeding it up), which would have stopped the train that was speeding near the end of the film.
Correction: Jack has no means to contact Mac. The radio in the train is damaged after Payne shoots the conductor and Jack didn't bring a radio or phone with him.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: Firing a gun at a moving vehicle full of innocent people on a highway, with hundreds of other cars around, is not a viable strategy to get the bus to stop.
BaconIsMyBFF