Unfortunately for them, police have heard it all before.
As part of police efforts to remind drivers there is no excuse for speeding, they have released a collection of the most outrageous excuses officers have been given by speeding drivers.
On October 29, a woman driving on State Highway 1 north of Dunedin was clocked at 142kmh in a 100kmh zone.
Her excuse was she was busy telling off the children in the back seat.
For one Otago motorist, the excuse was they were running out of fuel.
In Canterbury, officers stopped a driver for speeding and when asked why, they said they "didn’t like having cars in front of them, they liked the cars to be behind them".
Another driver told officers it was not his intention to drive fast when he was snapped doing 148kmh in a 100kmh zone, it was just his speedometer was out.
Another Canterbury motorist had a simple excuse: "I can see a truck ahead that I am trying to catch up to and pass."
Canterbury Highway Patrol Constable Sam Mills said some of the excuses he heard this year ranged from speeding so they could get to Lake Tekapo before it got dark, to someone from France saying the open road speed limit there was 120kmh.
Southern District road policing manager Inspector Brent Kingsland said while there was no excuse to speed, the reasons they heard daily were too funny not to share.
However, he was also hoping that, despite the humour, people would realise there was a consequence to their actions.
"From ‘I’ve never had a ticket before, can I have a warning?’, to ‘I didn’t see the speed sign’, our police have heard everything.
"Every opportunity we can take to reduce speeds, even by a fraction, has the potential to make a huge difference to safety on our roads.
"There’s nothing funny about attending a death on our roads."
