Former Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast said it was easy to put your foot down in a Tesla. Photo \/ Catherine Hutton<\/p>\n
Now sitting on 60 demerit points, the former mayor said she is \u201cjust going to have to drive to the limit\u201d. <\/p>\n
The admission came when Prendergast was asked about a recent story in the Herald that speeding fines were skyrocketing, <\/a>with 2025 having the highest number of fines issued in 15 years.<\/p>\n Asked by Mills how she managed to speed in her Tesla, which has multiple features to prevent speeding, she said she was \u201cbusy looking at the road and not at the big screen\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so easy in a Tesla to put your foot down and suddenly, vroom.\u201d<\/p>\n Prendergast said she had tried to keep the issue secret from some members of her family, but decided to come clean.<\/p>\n \u201cOur grandchildren found out at the weekend, so I\u2019m getting a whole heap of flak from them as well … my husband\u2019s going to be very upset when I go home.\u201d <\/p>\n Demerit points are given for all speeding infringements except those recorded by speed camera, and remain active on a licence for two years from the date of the offence.<\/p>\n When 100 demerits are accumulated within a two year period the licence is suspended for three months.<\/p>\n At the end of your demerit suspension, you\u2019ll be unlicensed and not entitled to drive until you\u2019ve reinstated your licence. <\/p>\n Prendergast, who was the capital\u2019s mayor between 2001 and 2010, made headlines in 2024 over a carparking dispute against the council<\/a>.<\/p>\n She took the Wellington City Council to court over a $40 parking ticket issued when she parked her red Tesla in an area the council deemed a footpath. She won the dispute and the charges were dismissed.<\/p>\n Prendergast now works as a director on multiple boards in the Wellington region.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast said it was easy to put your foot down in a Tesla. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16489,74,105665,49029,2947,181122,15211,181121,2740,1360,118785,19339,11556,10934,111,43,139,69,44625,156137,7241,25260,18834,61,52],"class_list":["post-338375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-admits","tag-after","tag-clocking","tag-confessed","tag-dame","tag-demerit","tag-drivers","tag-exwellington","tag-former","tag-having","tag-kerry","tag-licence","tag-losing","tag-mayor","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-points","tag-prendergast","tag-publicly","tag-speeding","tag-suspended","tag-to","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Dame Kerry Prendergast was Wellington Mayor between 2001 and 2010. Photo \/ Stephen A\u2019Court<\/p>\n