As part of my work I travel to lots of
places to undertake inspections, these
places range from major towns to remote properties.
On one such day I had been travelling in the Tara region and had been to about 7 different properties and was returning
Chinchilla to finalise paperwork prior to knock off. The road from Tara to
Chinchilla (70+km) is sealed with some sections only single lane and very limited sections to overtake.
I happened to be behind 2 cars which were travelling
well below the speed limit with nowhere to overtake, I sat back to wait for the section which I could safely overtake them (a long straight along the Tara airport (about 20km north of Tara). The car directly in front of me virtually stopped to turn left just before the straight allowing the front vehicle to get a fair way in front.
I got up to the speed limit and caught the lead vehicle with less than 1km to go before the straight veers to the right, I accelerated to overtake the car and half way around a vehicle rounded the bend towards us. I planted the foot to get around the car I was overtaking without out taking notice of the speed I was doing :(
As I returned back into the left lane the oncoming vehicle turned their lights and sirens on :( It was the Tara police vehicle hehe
All I could think of was I wonder how fast I was doing as I had no idea as I was concentrating on getting around the other car.
I pulled up in a safe spot and waited for the Police to arrive. They were pretty good about it but didn’t knock any kms off the ticket. They clocked me at 157km/h in a 100km/h zone which in QLD is a fine of just over $900, 8 points and 6 months of suspended licence.
Once I got
home and broke the news to SWMBO, I sat down and went through how I could keep driving for work as I needed a Licence to do my job. Once I found out what the procedure was I had to wait for the date upon which I was told by the Dept of Transport of when my licence
suspension was to commence. On that date I was able to apply for a Special Hardship Licence which basically means that without a Licence my family would suffer hardship as I would more than likely lose my job and as such the family income.
With the help of work, the local solicitor and a clean driving record, we had the application sorted
well in advance of the date of
suspension commencing. When the application was submitted I was permitted to drive once again without restriction until my court appearance (about 6 weeks).
On the court date my time before the Magistrate was quicker than I thought it would be as the Magistrate had pre read the application and IMHO had formed an opinion. In my application I had also requested to be permitted to drive for SES callouts, the Magistrate refused that sections but granted me a Conditional licence for a period of 6 months purely for work purposes only. This meant I could only drive between the hours of 6am and 12 midnight Monday to Friday, and only carry passenger directly related to work duties. I also had to wear my work uniform and keep a detailed logbook of every time I took a drive.
The Conditional licence started 4 weeks prior to Christmas and finished last week. So I basically didn’t travel for both Christmas and
Easter, which meant I couldn’t attend the
Easter EO Gathering at Luveka 4WD Park.
So after 6 months of being restricted due to being caught doing 98 in a 100 zone (98 mile in a 100km/h zone) has not only put a big dint in the finances but also prevent quite a few social trips etc.