Matthew Land and Simon Whelan plead guilty in Moorabbin Court over driving under the influence
A construction worker has told a court he “over-celebrated” after being caught driving with drugs in his system and almost three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system.
South East
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Two construction workers have fronted the Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court after both were caught driving after using cannabis.
Matthew Lang
A construction worker caught driving with more than double the legal limit of alcohol in his system also returned a positive drug test.
Matthew Lang, 26, pleaded guilty in Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court on March 19 to one charge of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
The court heard Lang was caught by police driving with almost triple the legal limit of alcohol in his system in Moorabbin on July 21 last year.
Police saw Lang driving at 3.41am in a Holden Commodore on the Nepean Highway, where he was weaving back and forth across the three middle lanes.
Lang’s car mounted the centre median strip before he was stopped by officers to undergo a breath test.
He returned a reading of 0.142.
Lang also had a positive reading for an oral fluid test, returning a result for cannabis.
The court heard Lang told police he’d been drinking half an hour before he got behind the wheel.
On Tuesday, Lang said he had “over-celebrated” before he was caught.
Magistrate Robert Stary warned Lang that the consequences of his offending could have been much worse.
“If someone had been injured, you almost certainly would have been imprisoned,” he said.
Lang was fined $1250 with conviction and his licence was cancelled for 14 months.
Simon Whelan
A second construction worker caught driving with cannabis in his system told a court he “thought he’d be in the clear”.
Simon Whelan pleaded guilty in Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court on March 19 to failing an oral fluid test after he was caught driving with drugs in his system.
The court heard police saw Whelan on Warrigal Rd in Moorabbin at 9.20am on August 26 last year, before stopping him on Keys Rd a short time later.
Whelan returned a positive result for an oral fluid test, showing he had cannabis in his system.
Whelan told police he “thought he was in the clear”.
“I didn’t think I’d be affected after 12 hours,” he said.
Cannabis can be detected by an oral fluid test up to 30 hours or more after indulging in the illicit drug.
Magistrate Robert Stary fined Whelan $600 with conviction and cancelled his licence for 12 months.
