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“You will never catch me driving again – I’m getting a bike,” drug driver tells court

The motorist, who has never passed a driving test, was banned for 12 months after being caught behind the wheel while over the limit for cannabis

A motorist, who was banned from driving for 12 months after being caught behind the wheel while over the legal limit for cannabis and without having insurance or even a driving licence, has vowed to a court that he will never drive again… and instead will take up cycling.

On 18 June this year, 36-year-old Tristan Daykin, from Killingworth, North Tyneside, agreed to give his son’s girlfriend a lift home, despite never having passed a driving test, the Chronicle reports.

After being spotted and pulled over by police officers in an unmarked car in Dudley, Daykin immediately got out of the vehicle he was driving, threw his hands in the air and told the officers, “I have no licence, I admit it, I shouldn’t be driving.”

The driver, who has 68 previous convictions, the last of which saw him jailed for burglary in 2019, was arrested after failing a roadside drug test. He was found to be over the limit for Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis.

> Police release distressing video after drug driver crashes at 60mph into child cycling in bike lane 

After failing to show up at North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court for his initial hearing on 24 August, which prompted a warrant to be issued for his arrest, the 36-year-old appeared before the same court in custody a few days later, where he pleaded guilty to driving while over the drug limit and for driving with no insurance.

John Wesencraft, defending, said that Daykin “immediately told police he shouldn’t have been driving when he was stopped. The consequences are that he’s going to be disqualified.”

He was banned from driving for 12 months and fined £120. Upon leaving the dock, he told magistrates, “You will never catch me driving again – I’m getting a pedal bike.”

> Parent of child hit by drug driver calls for greater police powers to stop offenders 

While Daykin appears to have voluntarily opted for the bike instead of (illegally) driving a car after his ban expires, convicted drug drivers may soon face a mandatory rehabilitation course and a requirement for medical clearance before they can regain their licence, after the government launched a public consultation in April on the creation of a high-risk offender scheme for drug drivers.

The consultation was welcomed as a “step in the right direction” by cyclist James Herring, who has called for the police to be given greater powers to immediately suspend the licences of motorists suspected of driving under the influence of drugs, after his six-year-old son Noah was struck at 60mph in a 30mph zone by a drug driver while cycling with his father on an off-road bike lane in February 2021.

The driver, Harry Summersgill, was under the influence of a cocktail of cocaine, cannabis and ketamine at the time of the crash on the Yarm Road in Stockton. He later pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was sentenced to three years in prison. The 24-year-old was also banned from driving for six and a half years.

> Delivery driver did not have a licence when he killed 89-year-old cyclist — jailed for 13 months 

In May, we reported that a delivery driver, who did not have a driving licence, was jailed for 13 months after hitting and killing an 89-year-old cyclist in Cambridge.

33-year-old Omar Camara-Taborda told police officers at the scene of the fatal collision that he held a full Portuguese driving licence which was at home, but the next day gave detectives a fraudulent licence.

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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16 comments

Avatar
Daveyraveygravey | 2 years ago
5 likes

Can you be disqualified from something you've never actually qualified for?!
And how do you rack up 68 convictions by the age of 36?! That's 2 a year, from the second you're born!

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Awavey replied to Daveyraveygravey | 2 years ago
3 likes

yes...sorry thats all Ive got for this, so yes again you can

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espressodan | 2 years ago
6 likes

From the sounds of it he's going to nick a bike.

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Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
7 likes

I know drugged driving/cycling is a major problem - I think more serious than people realise - but I am irresistibly reminded of Gaz Coombes' (Supergrass) comment about the time that the Lance Armstrong story broke: "I think all these cyclists who are taking drugs must be pretty good, I tried riding my bike on drugs once and went straight into a hedge."

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mark1a replied to Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
6 likes

A similar quote from (AFAIK) Willie Nelson:

“I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved, winning seven Tour de France races while on drugs. When I was on drugs, I couldn’t even find my bike.”

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chrisonabike replied to Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
2 likes

Yeah - but (maybe while in the brambles) he was caught by the fuzz.

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chrisonabike | 2 years ago
4 likes

Shurely - with the wisdom of 68 convictions behind him and not bothering to show for the first court date - what he said was just:

"You will never *catch* me driving again."

Seems like he's not shaken the belief he won't get nicked. (Or rather doesn't much care).

Avatar
steaders1 | 2 years ago
4 likes

Never passed a test and gets a 12 month ban!!!! Yet another slap on the wrist sentence, when will the justice system hand out sentences that can been seen as a proper deterrent. Do you think that someone who has never passed a test will actually pay any attention to this? Even a ban for life would not stop this idiot

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hawkinspeter replied to steaders1 | 2 years ago
3 likes
steaders1 wrote:

Never passed a test and gets a 12 month ban!!!! Yet another slap on the wrist sentence, when will the justice system hand out sentences that can been seen as a proper deterrent. Do you think that someone who has never passed a test will actually pay any attention to this? Even a ban for life would not stop this idiot

Longer sentences don't work as a deterrent as most people don't think they will be caught. The best deterrent is to increase the detection and prosecution of driving offences.

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TheBillder | 2 years ago
6 likes

Hmm... How can we punish an unlicensed driver? I know, take his licence away... er... something.

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Sriracha replied to TheBillder | 2 years ago
5 likes

More worrying - how do we keep an unsafe unlicensed driver from driving? Yeah, ban him.

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Welsh boy | 2 years ago
4 likes

An electric bike, a black hoodie and a balaclava and he can take both of his trips at the same time, would blend in nicely with the other electric bike, hoodie wearing chavs who leave a strange aroma and blue haze behind them

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anagallis_arvensis | 2 years ago
1 like

Long lift home if he started in Tyneside and ended up in Dudley!!

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SimoninSpalding replied to anagallis_arvensis | 2 years ago
0 likes
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efail | 2 years ago
2 likes

I've just checked the date. It's not April 1st.

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nordog | 2 years ago
1 like

He should be kept well away from Bicycles too!

 

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