Jesse Jack Fuzzard said a spider spooked him, causing him to crash. Photo: File. Photo: Albert McKnight.
Having a spider surprise you might cause anyone to jump in fear.
But for Jesse Jack Fuzzard, 33, he claimed it caused him to crash a car into a light pole.
Court documents show that at about 10:00 am on 21 October 2020, the Charnwood man was driving a black Audi SQ5 on the Belconnen Way.
As he approached two stationary cars near the intersection of Haydon Drive in Bruce, he swerved hard to the left and clipped the end of one, which contained a six-month-old baby, and crashed into a light pole. The pole then fell onto the roof of the second car.
When police arrived, they saw Fuzzard was extremely jittery and was pacing around.
He told them that while he was driving, a spider had crawled up his leg, causing him to swerve.
“He kept talking about spider webs in the vehicle and how he kept seeing a spider,” police said in court documents.
“Police looked inside the vehicle and found the interior to be extremely clean.”
A drug test found he had methylamphetamine in his system. But he told police he had only taken dexamphetamine and Codeine Forte in the past 48 hours.
Fuzzard pleaded guilty to one count of drug driving and was sentenced in the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday (2 June).
Magistrate James Stewart said, fortunately, no one was injured in the crash, but there was significant property damage, and it was a “fairly serious example of this type of offence”.
He said while the crash was of “unusual seriousness”, it was impossible to determine whether or not it was caused due to the appearance of the spider or the drugs in Fuzzard’s system.
He said people spoke highly of Fuzzard as someone who gave back to his community.
Magistrate Stewart disqualified him from driving for nine months and fined him $600.
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