Editorial: Others pay for excess

A man charged with driving with excessive speed in a residential area will face strong consequences in court.

A man who allegedly drove at excessive speeds in his flash car on a busy residential street on Sunday could have killed himself, his 14-year-old passenger or an innocent member of the public.

Police won't guess how fast he was going, but say if he was travelling at up to 90km/h in his high performance car, a Holden Clubsport, he could have taken the slight bend on Vaughan Rd easily. That means he was potentially doing more than 90km/h. How frightening.

When you do something wrong as a child, good parents always talk about consequences.

For this driver, if he is charged with careless driving (which police indicate he will be) and convicted he will face consequences from the court.

But there were wider consequences from what happened that afternoon, no matter if anyone is found to be criminally at fault.

Power was cut to about 1700 customers. While most were reconnected within an hour, 106 households had to wait until 3.15am on Monday for their power to go back on. That's nearly 12 hours later. You don't realise how much you rely on power until you're sitting in the dark, cold and hungry.

Facebook complaints were flowing into the night on Sunday as desperate families weren't able to feed or bath their children. Others couldn't find torches or candles and then there was the shock horror of the battery running flat on your tablets and smartphones meaning you could no longer seek comfort through social media.

All joking aside, those 106 households in Rotorua were suitably furious.

If it transpires that someone is to blame, we hope they are suitably sorry.