It’s been a bad week for Tom Riall, one of the chief executives at a company called Serco. He has just received a six month driving ban for being caught speeding at 102.92 mph while travelling along the A14, a dual carriageway with a 70mph limit. He was also fined £300 and ordered to pay £46 court fees and a £15 victim surcharge. The irony? Serco is a services company responsible for installing and maintaining many of the speed cameras scattered across our roads.
The strange thing is that he wasn’t snapped by one of his own cameras. Instead he was spotted and pursued by a traffic policeman, a rare sight on British roads these days, partly in thanks to the proliferation of speed cameras. Riall told the court that driving conditions were good and there was little traffic on the road and that, when stopped, he told the police officer that he believed he had been travelling at just 90mph.
Riall already had six points on his driving license from two previous motoring convictions, one of which was for speeding. Despite pleading to the court that a ban would have an impact on his work and family, and that hiring a driver to cover the period of the ban would cost £30,000, he was given six points on his license. This took his tally of points to twelve, meaning an automatic ban.
I’m trying to feel sorry for him … but no, I really can’t.
Source: Daily Telegraph
