Biker earns ban after posting videos of self speeding
They say excessive speeding isn’t big or clever. This guy DEFINITELY isn’t clever.
The first rule of Breaking The Law Club is: don’t tell people when you’re breaking the law. Shropshire biker Benjamin Males somehow didn’t know this rule and it resulted in him getting a driving ban.
Males, 22, of Shrewsbury, was convicted late last month of dangerous riding, after he posted videos of himself speeding, performing dangerous overtakes, and popping wheelies on public roads. In addition to an 18-month driving/riding ban - after which he will be required to take the infamous ‘extended test’ if he wants to get a license again - he was ordered to pay a fine of £199 and commit to 240 hours of unpaid work.
The videos were posted to Instagram and other social media earlier this year and quickly went viral, racking up more than 1 million views. Police say he attempted to throw them off the trail by tagging his videos as having been filmed in Mexico.
Strange how that didn’t work, Shropshire and Mexico being such similar environments…
What police didn’t say, but probably felt, is that Males is an absolute moron. I mean, how long have we had helmet cameras? Two decades? And yet somehow Males didn’t know that filming yourself doing stupid stuff and uploading it to social media is effectively the same as walking into a police station and giving them evidence.
“Hello, lads. Thought you might like to arrest me. Here’s proof of my wrongdoing.”
After Males’ sentencing, PC Jack Jackson of West Mercia Police told the BBC that he hoped the conviction would serve as a warning to others.
“Dangerous riding doesn't just put the rider at risk, it endangers innocent road users and influences others to copy reckless behaviour,” he said. “The footage in this case, uploaded by Males himself to Instagram, showed an appalling disregard for road safety.”
While Yamaha may slightly appreciate Males’ dubious endorsement of its MT-07 platform, it’s worth noting that PC Johnson’s not wrong.
As we pointed out recently when a Suffolk motorcyclist broke a local speed record on the A14, these kinds of actions on public roads can seem kind of cool at the time, but, ultimately, they end up hurting all motorcyclists.
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Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
