A wheel idiot! Taxi crash for show-off rider
SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR BANNED DRIVER INVOLVED IN TWO SMASHES
A BANNED driver smashed into a taxi after pulling a wheelie on his off-road motorbike down the length of a Gateshead street.
Richard Burnham suffered a broken leg in the smash but was caught behind the wheel again just 12 days later on the same road, a court heard.
On that occasion, he collided with another car before wiping the steering wheel clean of finger prints and “hobbling” away as police arrived.
Newcastle Crown Court was told the 19-year-old first got behind the handlebars of an off-road motorbike on Old Durham Road, in Gateshead, and was spotted by another driver turning on to Shipcote Lane and pulling a wheelie down the length of the street.
But, he couldn’t stop the vehicle when the front wheel finally went back down on the ground and he went straight through a red light at a junction and smashed into a taxi.
Dash-cam footage from the cab shows Burnham fly on to the bonnet of the car before falling on to the road, breaking his leg.
He was arrested but, just 12 days later, he was driving on the same road in an MG car, prosecutors said.
The road menace then crashed into a Vauxhall Corsa before he was seen wiping the steering wheel clean and trying to “hobble” away on foot.
Now, Burnham, of Iona Road, Gateshead, has been given one last chance or end up in jail after he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, two counts of driving while disqualified, two of driving without insurance and one each of failing to report or failing to stop after an accident.
Giving him a suspended sentence, Judge Amanda Rippon told him: “The first incident didn’t deter you, astonishingly, as, on the same road only 12 days later, you were found driving a car you shouldn’t have been driving and you had another car accident.
“Two things should follow from this for you. You can’t drive properly yet. You may think these are interesting vehicles and are easy to control but they are not. They are weapons when they are in the wrong hands and they can hurt people and they can hurt you.
“You’re not mature enough yet to get behind the wheel of any vehicle, however fun they may look.”
The court was told the first incident happened at around 3.30pm on October 16 when a witness spotted Burnham pulling a wheelie all the way along Shipcote Lane, between the junctions with Durham Road and Prince Consort Road.
The second incident happened 12 days later, when Burnham was going down Old Durham Road at around 6.40pm.
He crashed into a Vauxhall Corsa as it was turning right on to Beacon Lough Road, the court heard.
Prosecutor Neil Pallister added: “The force of the crash caused the complainant’s car to go on to a footpath on the opposite side of the road.”
Stuart Graham, defending, said Burnham deserved one last chance as he has calmed down since his fivemonth-old daughter’s birth.
He added: “The reason he went through the red light at the junction was his own stupidity of pulling a wheelie.”