Unlicensed motorcyclist 56km/h over the limit at Gladstone

A driver caught by police doing 142km/h at Lowmead is now walking and has a $1245 fine to pay

Police generic. Picture: Cordell Richardson

AN UNLICENSED motorcycle rider will have to explain to a magistrate why he was caught doing 56km/h over the speed limit on the Dawson Highway at Gladstone last night.

The 53-year-old man who was riding a Triumph motorcycle was issued with a court attendance notice as he only held a car licence.

A 46-year-old Foreshores man will be walking for the next six months he was caught doing 142km/h on the Bruce Highway at Lowmead last Monday.

These were the fastest speeds clocked by police on Gladstone region roads in the past week, with six people also getting caught for drink driving and 12 for drug driving.

Senior Sergeant Shaune English of the Calliope Road Policing Command said the man driving a Mazda utility was fined $1245, plus as he were in excess of 40km/h over the limit he lost his licence for six months.

“The biggest problem with any speed is that people think they can control the car as it’s designed to go faster and roads are designed to go faster,” he said.

“But all it takes is something to go wrong, and as soon as something goes wrong at those sort of speeds, your reaction times are limited, not to mention your stopping distances.”

Compared to the speed limit of 100km/h, Snr Sgt English said the driver would have travelled almost twice as far every second.

“100km/h is about 26 metres per second, so they were travelling nearly 40 metres per second,” he said.

“Most people’s reaction time is two seconds, so they were covering 80 metres in two seconds even before they had time to react.

“When you have almost covered the length of a football field before you can say holy cow, there’s something there and have time to react, it's a long way to travel before you start stopping.”

Parking in school zones continues to be a problem for police.

“Unfortunately with school zones, we constantly have problems with people parking on the solid yellow lines, or stopping on the yellow lines,” Snr Sgt English said.

“The biggest problem we have is with the pick up zones, so people line up to pick someone up but while they are lined up they are in no stopping areas.

“The solid yellow edge lines on the road actually mean no stopping...so they can be issued with a $53 fine, but council, their parking tickets are upwards of $100.”

Just because COVID-19 restrictions are easing, doesn’t mean drivers have any increased road privileges.

“The situation on the road doesn’t change, there are still all the same risks and penalties,” Sgt English said.

“Just because people have some freedoms with the relaxing of restrictions, doesn’t mean they have freedoms to do what ever they like, they need to remember the road rules at all times.”