A YOUNG driver who smashed his car into a wall, injuring himself and four passengers, was “lucky not to be a Monday morning road death statistic,” a judge said.
Before Limerick District Court, sitting in Kilmallock, was Michael Ryan Laine (22), of Annagh, Lisnagry, who pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving at Askroe, Murroe, on November 13, 2022.
Inspector Gearoid Thompson told Judge Patricia Harney that Mr Ryan Laine was driving the car when he lost control, colliding with a ditch and then hitting a garden wall.
All four passengers and the driver were injured in the incident and were taken to hospital.
“We don’t have have any detail of the injuries but they were discharged,” Inspector Thompson told the court.
Inspector Thompson said that the road was narrow and winding and while there was no way to determine what speed the car had been doing as there was a level of inexperience involved.
Inspector Thompson said that, having crashed the car, the young driver “met the matter head on and, the following day, he had arranged for the wall to be repaired”.
Judge Patricia Harney told Mr Ryan Laine that he was “very lucky to be alive”.
Having “injured everyone in the car including himself, he is lucky not to be a Monday morning road death statistic. But he did behave well afterwards”, she said
Given his guilty plea, previous clean record, and the efforts he made in the wake of the accident, Judge Harney said she would fine him €500 and disqualify him from driving for two years.
