Trainee pilot drove Audi A7 at 181kph in Laois

A trainee pilot who was caught driving an Audi A7 at 181 kmh in Laois has been offered the chance to pay €2,500 to avoid a driving ban. 

Beytullah Bozkurt, 24, of 4 Castlegrange Court, Castaheany, Dublin 15 was detected driving at 181 kph on the M7 at Ballydavis on May 22 last. 

Garda Sergeant Michael Tarpey said the defendant had no previous convictions and road conditions were good at the time. 

Solicitor Josephine Fitzpatrick asked Judge Andrew Cody to accept the lesser charge of careless driving which doesn’t attract an automatic disqualification. 

She said her client had been travelling from Limerick to Dublin on the day. He had adhered to the speed limit but at Ballydavis he overtook a line of lorries and sped up because another vehicle was directly behind him urging him on as he overtook, she said. 

Ms Fitzpatrick said her client was a Turkish national who has lived in Ireland for a number of years and was training to be a pilot in the Czech Republic. 

“He was driving an Audi A7, a 2011 Audi A7,” she said when asked by Judge Cody. 

She said her client worked part time in a restaurant and had brought €1,500 to court. 

Judge Cody said he had another case of a speeding motorist who forgot he wasn’t on the Autobahn in Germany. 

“This man seems to think he was in the air at the speed he was going,”  he said. 

He noted there had been a sad funeral in Portlaoise during the week and said if the man was willing to pay €2,500 to the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust he would reduce the charge from dangerous driving to careless driving. 

“Pilot training doesn’t come cheap, neither do Audi A7s for that matter,” Judge Cody added. 

He adjourned the case until October 26 and said the charge would be reduced if a receipt for the donation was produced in court.