Five-time All-Ireland winning Limerick hurler Kyle Hayes has been disqualified from driving for two years after being convicted of dangerous driving for overtaking nine cars at 155km/h in a 100km/h zone.
Hayes (26), of Ballyashea, Kildimo, had denied a charge of dangerous driving on the N20 between Cork and Mallow at Lissavoura, Grenagh on July 14th last. He told Mallow District Court he was willing to plead guilty to the lesser charge of careless driving on the main Cork-Limerick road.
However, Judge Colm Roberts said after hearing an outline of Hayes’s driving on the day from prosecuting officer Garda Deirdre Barrett, of the Cork County Traffic Unit, there was no way it could be considered anything but dangerous.
Garda Barrett said she had been on speed traffic duty in a marked Garda car at Lissavoultra near Grenagh, where the road consists of alternate sections where it is two lanes wide before reducing to one lane in each direction.
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She was parked on the southbound lane side facing toward Cork, but was checking the speed of vehicles travelling in both directions including those driving northwards where the dual carriageway reduced to a single carriageway about 300m from her.
She said she clocked the speed of nine vehicles travelling northbound in the left lane and they were under the speed limit, with the slowest car at the back travelling at 80km/h and the fastest car at the front travelling at 95km/h.
She noticed a white Audi A6 speeding up on the right overtaking lane and it overtook the nine cars at high speed before pulling into the left lane as the dual carriageway reduced to one lane. She clocked it travelling at 155km/h when it was some 243m from her vehicle.
Garda Barrett said she pursued the car and stopped it. She told the driver he had been driving at 155km/h on a national road where the speed limit was 100km/h.
She said Hayes told her he was not aware of the speed he was doing. He told her the speed limits for dangerous driving in Limerick was 160km/h when she informed him she was arresting him for dangerous driving.
Hayes took the stand and denied he had made the comment to Garda Barrett. He accepted he was driving at 155km/h at the time she clocked him with a speed gun.
He said he had overtaken the cars on his left and had a clear overtaking lane ahead of him. He said the cars on his left started to accelerate and he had to speed up to overtake them and get back into the left lane as the dual carriageway reduced to a single lane sooner than he expected.
He said he travelled the road two or three times a year and had seen a sign indicating the road reduced from a dual carriageway to a single carriage about 1km ahead, but he did not see any subsequent signs and suddenly found himself running out of road.
Hayes claimed he had speeded up only at that point and told the court he had been driving within the speed limit prior to that, including when he passed a speed van a few kilometres back.
Garda Barrett had told the court there had been many serious collisions at the stretch of road in question.
Judge Roberts said he knew the road well from driving along it for the past 30 years. He said he believed overtaking one car at that stretch to be dangerous but to overtake nine was exceptionally dangerous.
“I am struggling to see how he could over take nine cars on a stretch of road that he admits he did not know well. He chose to continue with his overtaking rather than slowing down,” the judge said. “He says it was a momentary thing but collisions can happen and people can be killed in a moment.”
Judge Roberts convicted Hayes of dangerous driving and imposed the mandatory two-year disqualification from driving. He also fined him €250 after hearing Hayes had no previous road traffic convictions.
The judge also granted an application by Sgt Majella O’Sullivan to have Hayes returned to Limerick Circuit Criminal Court under Section 99 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 to see if that court wishes to activate the two-year suspended sentence he received last March for violent disorder.
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