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

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.