The fastest speeding motorist ever caught in Britain was jailed for 10 weeks today after he admitted driving a Porsche at 172mph.
Tim Brady, of Harrow, north-west London, was caught in a random speed check as he drove a £98,000 3.6-litre 911 Turbo, Oxford crown court heard. Brady was also given a three-year driving ban and ordered to pay £474 costs.
“Your driving was criminally self-indulgent and utterly thoughtless of the danger you might be creating for the innocent,” Judge David Morton Jack said.
And he borrowed the car!!!
it is crazy to drive that fast on the public roads… take that bad boy to the track and have some real fun!
that said, 10 weeks is pretty damn harsh for speeding… A heavy fine and 3 years of ban would be plenty of punishment.
Whooa… 10 weeks on the slammer or 3 years without driving?
I’d take the slammer…
2. JoaoPT: I don’t think it was an either/or, it was 10 weeks in lock up followed by 3 year driving ban…. sucks to be him!
Cars should have speed limiters on them. RFI’s could set the maximum as you enter a new zone. Also sensors should control the distance between cars.
It has always been a damn shame that judges are every bit as ignorant and misinformed about the actual causes of most traffic fatalities as the dimwitted, brainwashed general public.
After years of “speed kills” propaganda, it is now widely accepted as fact, when the truth is that speeding convictions are a) the easiest to get, and b) the most lucrative for the government.
The primary cause of traffic deaths is failure to yield right-of-way, and has been since at least WWII. But to enforce that would require actual policing, and would result in decreased ticket revenues. And we certainly can’t have that…
Over 140 and things are real dicey….I can’t see anyone even wanting to do anything over 120 except on a road in Nevada that is straight and goes on for miles…
Ah. Then let’s have sensors installed in cars that make you yield and /or prevent you from cutting someone off. Safe distance sensors could provide both.
If people would stay the hell out of my way I would have no problem going 120 mph on almost any part of our rural interstate road system.
I know the road he was driving on, very curvy, lots of switches from two lanes to one and back again, lots of turnings where cars and tractors pull out unexpectedly. Several people are killed driving along it every year. He should never be allowed on the roads again, he’s an utter idiot.
#8, improbus… for you a special RFI emitter that sets all other cars to pull over.
Um, i think I just discovered a flaw in the sensor idea…
JimR, I don’t think you will be happy until the cars are driving themselves. It sure would be safer. Then people could put on makeup, read the paper and have breakfast while in traffic … and not cause accidents.
What would the cops do for a living if they couldn’t write speeding tickets?
Speed does kill, but it doesn’t necessarily cause accidents. Accidents are often caused however by a large difference in speed. Three cars doing 100mph are much less risky than two doing 55 interacting with one doing 100.
The basic rule is NO FUN. The governments are sucking the marrow out of life.
You are 100% correct, Les. Speed differential. Like the stupid bastard in the fast lane of the Beltway doing 55, while everyone around him is doing 80 – and the dumb fuck smugly thinks that HE’s the “safe driver”… and no cop pulls him over for blocking traffic, unsafe speed for conditions, improper lane usage, or any of the other numerous laws that would apply. They’re down the road manning a fucking Lidar speed trap, enriching the state’s coffers.
#7 – JimR
“Ah. Then let’s have sensors installed in cars that make you yield and /or prevent you from cutting someone off. Safe distance sensors could provide both.”
How ’bout let’s have better driving – and cops that concenrate on bad drivers and not easy, lucrative targets?
Speed absolutely, 100%, has never killed anyone. Incredibly rapid acceleration or deceleration hurts pretty bad. So, how about we outlaw accelerating/decelerating over a certain rate?
“Speed doesn’t kill; it’s the sudden stop at the end that hurts.”
Oh, and another little statistic that the kops ‘n kourts don’t publicize: most traffic fatalities occur at speeds under 45MPH. And that has been the case since there’s been cars.
#13, commuting between cities is already no fun. Driving to the beach on a holiday weekend is already no fun. Driving sensibly makes little difference when someone else makes a deadly mistake.
We have safety devices installed on all other heavy equipment, why not cars? Shears and metal presses, for instance, require both hands to be on buttons before they can work even though you’ll get done faster if you shove the working piece in with one hand and trip the switch with the other.
Why don’t elevators have gas pedals and brakes? That would be fun until some idiot went past the top floor doing 172 mph.
Like everything else potentially dangerous, cars should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator so that innocent people don’t get killed.
#16 I’d sure like to see that statistic backed up somewhere. It’s not that I don’t believe you….
#15, Matt,
“Speed doesn’t kill; it’s the sudden stop at the end that hurts.”
And those sharp shards of metal, plastic, and glass slicing through your flesh …
and while we are on the subject, I am not so convinced that driving at speed doesn’t kill…. its just makes sense: the faster you are going, the longer it takes to stop. Who knows, maybe more people are killed for failing to yield the right away, but then, if you are pulling out into a road, and some nut-bar is driving at 173 mph, while it may be his right of way, its awful hard to see…..
“How ’bout let’s have better driving – and cops that concenrate of bad drivers and not easy, lucrative targets?
Lauren, in reality, better driving is as likely as eliminating unwanted pregnancies. Human tendency for everything seems to be to start off cautiously, and then by increments, to push risk to the limits.
I guess it’s different here in Canada. Cops rarely go after speeders unless they are moving much faster than the traffic around them. The 401 has a 100kPH speed limit, but most people drive 120, cops included. if someone goes by at 140, you can be sure to see them pulled over somewhere up ahead.
On holiday weekends they want everyone to slow down and give fair warning that they’ll be everywhere nabbing speeders and those not wearing seat belts. despite this, they always catch 100’s of idiots driving exceptionally dangerously.
There are dickhead cops of course, but most in my experience are reasonable up here. I even had one a few weeks ago driving in the opposite direction, mouth to me to slow down (which I immediately did). Sure enough, there was a speed trap a mile up the road.
Ten weeks in jail and a three year license suspension? Sounds like he got off easy.
Bullshit to speed doesn’t kill. It does and is a factor in too many accidents. The faster one goes, the more distance traveled before reaction sets in.
The three most common cited factors in fatal accidents are alcohol (40%), reckless driving(33%), and speeding(30%). Usually in some combination.
Considering that women are, statistically, much less prone to accidents, maybe we should just ban men from driving…. 😛
Nobody has ever died as a result of breaking speed laws.
People have died attempting to break the laws of physics, however…
#9….Yes…I know the road well also…..not a good place for that speed or not paying attention to your surroundings. He should have jumped the ferry and gone to Germany for the weekend, got it out of his system.
FIRST OFF..I want some bozo at one of the car manufacturing companies (OR a govt official, I dont care which, not much difference)… to tell me….US… WHY, OH WHY do they make civilian cars able to go 175 mph IN THE FIRST DAMNED PLACE????????
THEN they write people tickets (or put them in jail) for using what is sold to them as “STANDARD EQUIPMENT” every day!!. TALK ABOUT STUPID. I give them the SUPID award for the week…no the century.
Id truly LOVE to hear their explanation.
oh I know – its so cops will have something to do (as the other writer said)…give us cars that go 175; go 175, get ticket or thrown in jail. State and insurance companies get more mega bucks from ya on top ‘o that. *rolling eyes*
WHAT A RACKET.
geez, please somebody get me a Percocet, Im getting a migraine just thinking about it.
(lol) but true.
whatever it cost to prosecute him..
I’ll pay that much for the next ride.
As long i can drive there.. and not fly..
#5 What you say may be true, that failure to yield may cause the most accidents, but does that also hold for single car accidents caused by failure to control your vehicle that’s moving at over 120 mph? I’d like to see that numbers on that. Also, it might be difficult to “yield” to someone going that fast when you never saw him or her before they came ’round the bend.
everything i do, moves at the speed of light
>>The primary cause of traffic deaths is failure to yield right-of-way
Ah, you got THAT one right, Fish Monger. But don’t hold your breath until the cops give up that cash cow of speeding tickets. Got a quota you’re going to miss? No problem!! Virtually EVERYONE on the road is “speeding” (ever try driving 30 mph in a 30 mph zone??), so it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
>>Ah, let’s have sensors..
You and your fucking sensors. Why don’t we just implant microchips in everyone’s brain, so if they even THINK about doing anything “wrong”, their bodies will be wracked with unbearable pain. For a duration to be determined by the number of wrong thoughts they have thunk.