Teen clocked at 166km/h told speed is way too high
AN 18 year old teenager caught driving at 166kmh in a 100kmh zone on a Donegal road has been told by a judge that the speed recorded was beyond her consideration for a reduction to a careless driving charge.
“Speed is what is killing people, it’s simply too fast” Judge Emile Daly said at Letterkenny District Court.
Darragh Cummings (18), of Sunvale Park, Greysteel, was charged with dangerous driving at Rossbracken near Manorcunningham on April 19, 2026 — where the speed limit is 100kmh.
Defending solicitor Mr Rory O’Brien applied to have the charge reduced to careless driving, indicating that Cummings would undertake the ProSocial Driving Course and that the offence occurred on a “straight, clear stretch of road.”
He described his client as a young man who had never come to any other adverse attention and said Cummings dealt with the issue at the earliest possibility.
Cummings, he said accepted the incident was a lapse of judgement. Mr O’Brien added that his client had sent a letter of apology to the judge.
Mr O’Brien asked the court to reconsider, saying there is no ‘good’ dangerous driving case and that Cummings fully accepted he had been wrong.
He warned the charge would have a significant impact on his client’s life but that it was “ a difficulty that he has placed upon himself.”
Judge Daly was unmoved and referred the matter to another judge at a future sitting of the District Court in Buncrana, in July.