Lotus CEO Caught Doing 164km/h, Says He Needs To Personally Test Cars

Come at me, bro.

Lotus CEO Caught Doing 164km/h, Says He Needs To Personally Test Cars

I’m CEO, bitch. That’s essentially what the head of Lotus recently told a judge when he was caught doing 102mph (164km/h) in a 70mph (112km/h) zone.

I have a good excuse, officer

According to The Telegraph, Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales was pulled over by authorities in a company sportscar on the A11 highway last January near their Norwich HQ. The paper stipulates that the speeding offence of driving 32mph (50km/h) over the speed limit would often warrant a penalty of “six points or [for the offender to be] disqualified for between seven and 56 days”.

Gales however managed to dodge the full force of the law because his lawyer argued that it was an essential part of the business that the CEO test drove cars himself.

The Sun reported in detail that:

His solicitor Simon Nicholls argued that a short ban was preferable as it was “vital” that Gales was able to test drive new Lotus cars himself on the road, and that although Lotus had engineers to take new cars on the road, as head of Lotus he liked to test the cars personally and see how they handled.

The judge, Mary Wyndham, granted Gales a free pass but not without imposing a short 30-day driving ban and a £666 fine alongside an additional £166 for other charges – all without the loss of a single point.

Wyndham also told Nicholls to caution his client on using the A11 as a test track in future and to keep it on the track instead.

“He should use somewhere else,” she said.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Gales has had a brush with the thin blue line. The British sports car CEO had previously racked up eight points on his license with five of those for allegedly to doing 96mph (155km/h) over the speed limit on the same road back in 2014.

If the judge had given Gales an additional three points for this offence, it would have seen the Lotus CEO hitting 12 points, meaning an immediate 12 month driving ban.

Now who said the ‘Get out of jail free card’ was fake? Just be the CEO of a sports car company.