Teen and mum’s road rage leads to police chase, arrest

A local teenager cornered a car on the road with his mum, punched the driver in the face, shattered his windscreen, and led police on a car chase, a court has heard.

A teenager cornered a car on the road with his mum, punched the driver in the face, shattered his windscreen, and led police on a car chase, a court has heard.

Bryce Lewis Startup was sentenced in Hobart Magistrates Court on Thursday for a range of offences committed on September 29 last year.

The unlicensed 19-year-old was riding a trail bike when he “boxed in” a Toyota RAV4 driver who had “gotten under his skin”.

When the car stopped Mr Startup “rushed aggressively” at the driver and began berating him, at which point Mr Startup’s mum arrived and “joined in”.

Mr Startup punched the driver in his face with a gloved fist two times, then punched his windscreen so hard that it shattered.

An off-duty police officer happened to see these events unfold and attempted to intervene.

The police officer told Mr Startup to stop, but instead he got on his trail bike and drove away at high speed.

Bryce Lewis Startup. Picture: Facebook

Around 25 minutes later police tried to stop Mr Startup on the East Derwent Highway, but he continued to drive away in an attempt to evade capture.

Mr Startup was eventually arrested, charged, and bailed, before going on to plead guilty to all of his charges.

Hobart Magistrate Michael Daley said Mr Startup’s road rage and his subsequent actions were seriously disproportionate.

“Abuse back and forward got under your skin … before you assaulted the other driver,” Mr Daley said.

“To be hit with full force with a motorcycle glove is a pretty serious way to assault somebody, certainly somebody you had no prior dealings with who’s got under your skin for no reasonable cause.”

Mr Daley said hitting somebody with a riding glove was “almost”, but not quite, tantamount to assaulting somebody with a weapon.

Mr Daley said he would refrain from giving Mr Startup a prison sentence, since he was young and had no income.

He was sentenced to a 12 months community corrections order, 49 hours of community service, and a $1730 fine.

“I’ll give you an opportunity to show that this was a one-off brain snap if you accept it was a stupid thing to do,” Mr Daley said.

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