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Wednesday, July 12, 2023
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GUIDE Roos stay in the hun hunt
COLOUR UNPACKED WHEN Wangaratta’s Jacki Macleish returned to painting a few years ago after child-raising and a busy career as a midwife, she didn’t expect to become an award-winner. Now the emerging artist is holding her first solo exhibition and it opens today at the Art Gallery on Ovens. Full story page 4. PHOTO: Kurt Hickling
Sport
‘OBSCENE’ SPEED ‘Three seconds’ of excess costs Maserati driver $ $1500 and 12 month ban
A MOTORIST who reached just shy of 150kph in his Maserati coupe while exiting the township of Everton earlier this year has been told his driving behaviour was “obscene” and placed other road users at serious risk of death. The 39-year-old faced Wangaratta Magistrates Court on Monday, pleading guilty to driving in a manner dangerous after he accelerated to a speed of 146kph while driving north along the Great Alpine Road around 3pm on May 2.
The court heard police had been completing speed measuring outside of their vehicle, and had first noticed the accused’s black Maserati coupe travelling at 60kph through the nearby school zone. They returned to their cars to affect an intercept, following as the accused accelerated to more than 45kph above the 100kph speed limit as he exited the township. He subsequently pulled to the side of the road as police activated
their red and blue lights. Police prosecutor Constable Imogen Akers said the accused had not been under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the offending. Defending himself in court, the accused said he had shown “a lack of judgement” and was very remorseful for the offending, which he said had occurred in line with ongoing mental health struggles. He said despite police
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contending the road had been subject to medium levels of traffic, the roads had been “empty”. “There was no one on the road at all – I drove through a town that was dead,” he told Magistrate Ian Watkins. “I put my foot down for about three seconds – there’s no excuse.” Mr Watkins said if the highspeed driving had occurred through the 60kph zone within the Everton township, the accused would have been serving
a prison sentence as a result. Instead, he convicted and fined the accused more than $1500, and banned him from driving for the next 12 months. He also ordered the accused to complete a safe driver program before becoming re-licenced. “That’s an obscene speed on that road,” he said. “Simply because you’re a driving a Maserati doesn’t mean you have any entitlement to drive at that obscene speed.”
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