Biker clocked doing 'astonishing' 138mph on A5
A motorcyclist was caught riding at 138mph on the A5 – a speed described as “astonishing” in court.
Pablo Maxwell, a 38-year-old self-employed carpenter from Telford, admitted breaking the 60mph limit on the A5 at Ty Nant, near Corwen, last summer.
At Flintshire Magistrates' Court at Mold yesterday he was banned from driving for 90 days, fined £500 with £85 costs and a £50 surcharge.
Magistrates said that they were “horrified” at his speed.
Clocked
Prosecutor Alun Williams told the court that it was an astonishingly high speed – well over twice the limit.
He said a roads policing officer was in a camera van monitoring traffic after 10am one morning in August last year when he saw a BMW 1,000 RR machine pass well in excess of the speed limit. The camera clocked him at 138mph.
It was an aggravating feature that the photograph produced of the machine showed the defendant riding towards a triangular warning sign warning of a pedestrian crossing 250 yards ahead of him.
Defending solicitor Mike Gray said that his client had a clean driving licence and had no offences before or since.
He said: “138mph speaks for itself. I am not going to insult the court’s intelligence by attempting to condone this speed in any way.”
He added the machine Maxwell was riding was “one of the latest generation of motorcycles”. It was “extremely powerful and was extremely well equipped with brakes which could stop the machine very, very quickly indeed”.
Weather
Mr Gray added Maxwell, of Telford Road, Wellington, Telford, had not been speeding on the remainder of the journey or he would have been caught on the many cameras that were on the road from Shropshire.
He told the court weather conditions were “fantastic” – clear and dry – and he was using a motorcycle which was capable of stopping within the distance that he could see ahead of him.
Magistrates were told the defendant was realistic and knew he would be banned from driving but Mr Gray said that he and his partner had a mortgage to meet.
The offence was “entirely out of character” by an experienced motorcyclist who foolishly took his machine up to a very high speed.
