I didn’t know I was speeding – yeah right
October 13th, 2011 at 8:01 am by David FarrarStuff reports:
A driver caught doing 127kmh in a 50kmh zone at Wellington’s Moa Pt was having trouble working out the speed his newly bought Mercedes Benz was doing, a court has been told.
Mario Giannoutsos, 42, of Otaki was clocked by police doing 77kmh above the speed limit just after midnight on July 30 while driving along Moa Pt Rd. …
Wellington District Court duty solicitor Barbara Hunt said yesterday that Giannoutsos had only recently bought the car and was having trouble with it, including being unable to work out the speed he was going because the lights on the dashboard were not working. He had been driving to check out what was wrong with the car.
Judge Davidson fined him $600. The maximum he could have been fined was $1000.
Somehow I think he knew the speed, with or without lights. That road is notorious for people trying to set speed records on it.
Tags: road safety
October 13th, 2011 at 8:12 am
Ground bait for the malcontents, waiting for the,
“Just like Helen Clark”
Yep its been a shocking week for the government .
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 8:35 am
The name of the driver rang bells. A person of that name was a driver at the Defence Transport Pool. If its him I would credit he didn’t know what speed he was doing, bugger never looked at his instruments and only had two speeds.
“Yep its been a shocking week for the government .” Wait… WHAT????? John Key was driving the car? Check your meds hannity.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 8:38 am
What an excuse! You might find yourself doing 70 in a 50k zone but not 127k. Oh well it’s worth a try.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 8:50 am
Murray
Vote:Of course Key wasn’t driving but the government response to this has been appalling. There has been no remedial action. The car hasn’t been confiscated and judder bars are not yet installed. Key needs to keep pace with what is going on in this country.
October 13th, 2011 at 8:51 am
Wait for it…
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Sorry nookn, what was I thinking.
As lucid and relevant as always RRM. Don’t have a party to go to clelebrate the release of over a thousand mudering scumbags? Sorry I mean heroic freedom fighters of course.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 8:57 am
Nookin – loled hard at 8:50 comment.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 8:58 am
LOL oddly the google ad is for a BMW
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:02 am
$600?? No wonder we have the road toll we do.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:02 am
@hannity – the relevance of your comment – including the brilliant [“Just like Helen Clark"] escapes me.
She was a back seat passenger in a police escorted convoy of vehicles trying to get from Waimate to CHC airport so she could fly to a footy game in Wellington. When sprung about the excessive speed, she happily let the driver take the rap. Nice touch, that.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10341544
This Nigel Nobody tries out his second hand Merc on a flat piece of road at midnight and gets caught / licence suspended for 28 days. It went to Court. I presume he paid the fine.
But now you mention it ‘hannity’, there is one major difference between Klark’s situation and this bloke – he admitted that he was speeding / took it on the chin and paid up. Whilst his ‘excuse’ was pathetic, he was at least accountable for his actions. No bleating evident / no passing the buck.
And Klark? In her case, she adopted the “I know nothing” defence and sat back whilst the driver (who acted under instruction) was convicted and ate crow. But in the end, the voters had their say and Klark was dumped in time for her to scuttle off to her new role in New York.
“Yep its been a shocking week for the government .” Really? I didn’t think that the Government had anything to do with the fact that a moron drove his ship onto a reef, but if you know better, please share….
And in case you want to know how to turn on the dash lights, hannity – try this: With the headlights on, turn the trip odometer knob on the instrument cluster (directly to the left of the speedometer), clockwise to increase the intensity and anticlockwise to decrease the intensity of the instrument cluster and dashboard lights. Not sure whether you have a dash dimmer on your own wheels, hannity, but this works on a Merc.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:05 am
I think the dimmer in his head is at full power.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:05 am
Thanks for that insightful bleat Mal.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Well about a week ago, a Swiss guy was busted driving at 320kph on a public highway, and only got caught because he filmed the speedo with his cellphone.
Hard to use the excuse that the dashboard display wasn’t working in this case.
http://genevalunch.com/blog/2011/10/05/a1-limo-driver-on-clocked-at-320kph-filming-the-feat-himself/
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:19 am
LOL what?
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Wellingtonians, what is the speed record on Moa Pt Road?
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 9:52 am
You’ve always been pretty slow RRM. Keep it up.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 10:02 am
Yeah I’m sorry Murray, I’m a bit slow sometimes.
Are you trying to apologize for your dirty smear about how I supposedly sympathise with killers?
If so, how very gracious – accepted.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 10:16 am
That seems incredibly dangerous – did he lose his licence, have car impounded etc?
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 10:48 am
All this guy had to say was; ‘Hurry hurry or I’ll miss the Rugby’ ….
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
It’s not a very long straight that one, and it has real 50km/h corners at each end of it.
So any speed “record” attained there requires a lot more impressive machinery than doing the same speed on the desert road…
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I note that the straight alongside the airport runway is part of “Moa Point Road”. A 50 km/h speed limit there is relatively new. It used to be 100.
As for the speed record, I have no idea, but I do recall back in the late 80′s I several times tried pacing 737′s on my motorcycle as they took off towards the north. They (and I) seemed to be doing around 220 – 230 km/h as they rotated and I had to slow for the corner on to Lyall Parade.
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
I would’ve thought that would have been an instant loss of licence, or did the judge swallow that excuse?
Vote:October 13th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
He was clearly lying , so the judge should have added further contempt of court charges , rather than giving him a $400 discount.
Vote: