{"id":339041,"date":"2026-03-20T11:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339041\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T11:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:23:12","slug":"former-mayor-caught-speeding-five-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339041\/","title":{"rendered":"Former mayor caught speeding five times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">By Anya Fielding of RNZ\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A former Wellington mayor has admitted to having her driver&#8217;s licence suspended after being caught speeding five times.<\/p>\n<p>Dame Kerry Prendergast told Nick Mills, the host of\u00a0Wellington Mornings\u00a0on\u00a0Newstalk ZB, live on air that she had lost her licence for three months before Christmas last year.<\/p>\n<p>Prendergast admitted it while discussing whether speeding fines should be raised to reduce road deaths.<\/p>\n<p>She told RNZ that she was &#8220;shocked&#8221; when her licence was suspended, as she had not noticed the demerit points adding up over two years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Suddenly, you get a letter and you&#8217;re not allowed to drive,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>The New Zealand Transport Agency suspends licences after 100 demerits are accumulated in a two-year period.<\/p>\n<p>Prendergast had her licence returned last week, with a remaining 60 demerits on it, as the points gradually taper off.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve learnt my lesson and I won&#8217;t be speeding because I cannot go through the trauma of losing my licence again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said she struggled with the loss of independence and was upset with herself for speeding.<\/p>\n<p>She had to rely on her husband to get around and walked a lot while she not allowed to drive.<\/p>\n<p>Her grandchildren were &#8220;shocked to find that their grandmother had been caught speeding not just once but five times&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They didn&#8217;t think it was funny at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Anya Fielding of RNZ\u00a0 A former Wellington mayor has admitted to having her driver&#8217;s licence suspended after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-339041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339041","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=339041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}