It was just meant to be a night out in the city with friends, but it all went pear-shaped for an uninsured British man when he tried to drive home at 7am the next morning.
Maurice Cooney, 33, took a wrong turn and ended up driving his week-old Mercedes on to a tram track near Birmingham in the Midlands, where it promptly got stuck.
His blunder caused five hours of disruption to services, nearly $11,000 worth of repairs were needed for his car, plus he was banned from driving for 17 months and incurred $730 of fines and court costs after he failed a breath test and was found to be uninsured.
It would be no surprise if he admitted he wished he’d stayed at home that night!
Cooney’s solicitor Harjit Rashoda told magistrates the no insurance offence was an ‘oversight’ linked to the very recent acquisition he’d made of the 66-plate Mercedes, the
Daily Mail reported.
She said: “This is a gentleman entitled to full credit for his guilty pleas.
“He went to a nearby building and located a porter and alerted them to the fact that the vehicle was stuck on the tramlines. He told them to call the police.”
The personal trainer had travelled from Shropshire to Birmingham to join friends on a night out.
The next day, his lawyer said, he ‘felt okay and foolishly made the decision to get up and drive his vehicle home’.
Unfortunately, he ended up on the Metro line and soon realised there was no way of turning back, so he carried on. That was when he became stuck, unable to move in any direction.
“The vehicle is currently in the garage and it’s going to cost 6,000 pounds to repair,” his solicitor said. “That’s going to hit him in the pocket.”
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