Construction worker Rajabali Atoev sentenced after hitting eye-watering speed on Hume Highway
Rajabali Atoev was driving along the Hume Highway last November when he received a phone call that caused him to act. He would live to regret the decision.
Police & Courts
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It was just before 9.30am on the first Monday in November last year when construction worker Rajabali Atoev received a phone call from his boss while cruising along the Hume Highway near Mittagong.
“You’re late,” the boss told him, “hurry up”.
Atoev hurried up alright.
In a breathtakingly stupid move he almost instantly came to regret, Atoev put pedal to the metal — literally — in a bid to make up for lost time, climbing to such a high speed along the notorious stretch of road he would have seemed little more than a blur to those motorists he passed.
Documents tendered to Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday said police clocked the Uzbekistani national’s Volkswagon Golf hurtling northbound on the highway at an eye-watering 280km/h, almost three times the signposted speed limit of 110km/h.
Stunned highway patrol officers quickly took off after Atoev and signalled for him to pull over, which — to his credit, Magistrate Glenn Walsh wryly noted — he did.
When asked about his exorbitant speed, 23-year-old Atoev said, “I am late for work, my boss called me this morning and was angry”.
The court heard Atoev produced an international drivers licence and a NSW photo identification.
He said he had been in Australia for three years on a student visa but had been working full time in the construction industry for two years.
Atoev had his licence torn up on the spot and was issued with a notice to attend Moss Vale Local Court at a future date.
Atoev subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of driving at a dangerous speed and had the case transferred to his hometown of Bankstown for sentencing.
During a hearing on Tuesday, Atoev’s lawyer Pawel Kulisiewicz conceded at the outset his client had no defence to the charge and that he had prior speeding matters on his record, albeit not as serious.
“He’s made a terrible mistake … he has no defence, he’s done the wrong thing,” he said.
“He was late to work and his boss called him … he was so preoccupied with being late for work and being fired, that’s why he sped.”
Mr Kulisiewicz said Atoev was cooperative when pulled over by the police and had recently completed the Traffic Offenders Program, which had had a “profound” impact on him.
Magistrate Walsh said Atoev had abandoned all responsibility he had to other road users by driving in the manner he did.
“He’s demonstrated he’s not a fit and proper person to hold a licence,” he said.
However, Magistrate Walsh stopped short of sending Atoev to jail, noting there was a plethora of material before the court attesting to Atom’s otherwise good character.
“I think it’s unlikely he will reoffend based on the material before me and I find he has good prospects of rehabilitation,” he said.
Atoev was placed on an 18-month community correction order, which includes 120 hours of unpaid community service work.
He was also banned from getting behind the wheel of a car for 18 months.
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