From motorbike to morgue

2007-10-01 23:03

Sarie van Niekerk

Boksburg - He clocked 276km/h on his motorbike. For his punishment, he has to help in the morgue.

Zunaid Hoosen Mia, 32, the owner of Carnival Jewellers in Brakpan was trapped at this high speed on his Suzuki motorcycle on the N17 freeway to the East Rand on August 26 2006.

Magistrate Jurg Vivier punished him severely on Monday for his love of speeding.

Mia has to serve 150 hours doing community service at the Saaberie Chisty Institute in Lenasia, assisting the ambulance service personnel and also in the morgue.

He was also given a fine of R60 000 or three years in prison. Two-thirds of his sentence was suspended for five years.

Mia pleaded guilty. He said in mitigation that he had been late for a motorbike breakfast run.

'The motorbike had already passed us'

"I didn't look down at my speedometer, because it would have been too dangerous at that speed.

"I just kept my eyes on the road," Mia testified.

Superintendent Marius Eybers of the Ekurhuleni Metro Police said the motorbike went through the speed-trap "like a streak of lightning" at about 08:00 that Sunday morning.

"There's a distance of 2km between the speed-trap and the vehicles that must pull the cars off the road, but the moment we got the message 'There's a speedster on the way' on our radio, the motorbike had already passed us."

"We gave chase and at times we were doing 200km/h, but we couldn't catch him.

"We only caught him when he stopped to join some of his friends for the run," Eybers said.

Vivier said there had been no "emergency" in Mia's high-speed chase.

"It was out-and-out just for the pleasure of speeding. You were travelling at a crazy speed."

Vivier said he would have liked to have the motorcycle declared forfeit, but unfortunately it was still on hire-purchase.

He had also wanted to suspend Mia's driver's licence, but had taken into account that Mia was the sole breadwinner with a wife and three small children.

"Besides which, if I suspend your licence, how will you get to Lenasia to do community service?"

- Beeld