A Fife man has been banned from driving for 12 months and fined £400 after being clocked doing 125mph on the region’s main trunk road.
Brad Berger, 23, from Glenrothes, appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to admit a charge of dangerous driving on the A92 between Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy on April 14 2018.
Berger was caught on the Thornton bypass shortly before 8am on the morning in question. He was travelling at 125mph, close to double the 70mph limit for the dual carriageway.
On being charged, Berger told officers: “I was extremely late.”
The court heard from defence solicitor David McLaughlin that Berger is an apprentice car mechanic employed at the Kia branch of Arnold Clark and had been warned about his tardiness by his supervisor in the days prior to the offence.
“On the morning of April 14 he was driving to his work,” the solicitor explained.
“The previous day he had had a talk from his supervisor that he had been late two or three times and if it happened again then further measures would be taken, HR (human resources) would be getting involved, and there would be a threat to his employment.
“Unfortunately for him, he woke up relatively late, he has come off the roundabout, seen a relatively clear road and tried to make up the time.”
The court also heard Berger had been driving an X-registration Audi S3, one of the more powerful cars of its type on the market.
Mr McLaughlin said his client had accepted he had been going “far, far, far too fast” on the Saturday morning in question and regretted his actions.
Sheriff Jamie Gilchrist asked the Crown if there had been any aggravating factors which had led to the dangerous driving charge being tabled, although the depute fiscal said the high rate of speed “exclusively” had brought that about.
Sheriff Gilchrist discounted Berger’s fine to £400 for his early guilty plea and disqualified him from driving for the mandatory 12 months.
Berger was also ordered to sit the extended driving test once his period of disqualification comes to an end.
