Amazon delivery driver did 120mph on motorway after ‘over-running’ by two hours

Majed Awad, 22, of Meadow Grove in Belfast, was in a Skoda Superb car on the M22 motorway near Antrim at 9.45pm on Sunday February 21, the court, sitting in Ballymena, heard.

A prosecutor said police followed the vehicle for around half a mile whilst maintaining a “constant gap” and the defendant’s vehicle was travelling “in excess of 100mph”. The prosecution lawyer added: “At one stage police observed the speed to be 120mph.”

The defendant appeared at court via video-link from his solicitor’s office and pleaded guilty to speeding.

The court heard the defendant had no previous record and no penalty points on his licence and is currently a student doing business management.

On the date in question he was working for Amazon and, the defence lawyer said, “each driver is allocated a certain amount of time and a certain amount of parcels, and they are expected to deliver those parcels within a certain amount of time”.

The lawyer said the defendant had “over-run” his delivery by up to two hours.

He added: “His experience of driving for Amazon was in some ways a bad experience because of the pressure, as a driver, he was put under.

“It does not justify the speed that he was travelling at on the night in question but at the end of the day he felt under pressure to complete his duties as quickly as he possibly could.”

The solicitor said Awad no longer has the Amazon part-time job and now does care work and needs his licence to attend client’s homes and if he lost his licence “he would have to give up that employment”.

Given Awad’s situation, District Judge Nigel Broderick banned him from driving for a month along with a £100 fine instead of a three-month ban.