The owner of a transport company had meth in his system and smoked two cannabis joints at the wheel of his faulty and unauthorised truck during a long-haul South Island trip.
At the hearing, Mikkelson, the owner of That Transport Company, made an unsuccessful bid to keep his licence so he could continue working.
According to the summary of facts, Mikkelson was driving a Nissan Condor truck from Dunedin to Invercargill on November 11 last year, fully laden with building materials for a client.
On his way, he was stopped by a commercial vehicle safety team (CVST) that discovered his truck not only had an expired certificate of fitness but that the transport service licence displayed did not belong to the truck or the company.
For a truck with a gross vehicle mass of more than six tonnes, this would be a requirement.
After further inspection of the vehicle, inspectors found several faults, including a worn tyre, missing mirror, an insecure front bumper and a broken taillight.
They issued a non-operation order on the vehicle which prohibited Mikkelson from driving it until repairs were carried out and a certificate of fitness was obtained as well as a transport service licence.
Mikkelson was also issued with a notice forbidding him to operate an unlicensed transport service and was ordered to hand over his logbook to police — which contained no entries for that day’s work.
During his interaction with police, officers noticed the trucker’s behaviour was unusual.
He admitted to smoking two joints while driving from Christchurch to Dunedin.
A compulsory impairment test was carried out which Mikkelson failed and a blood test returned positive results for methamphetamine and cannabis.
As a result, he was forbidden to drive for 12 hours, starting at 10.30am that day.
However, only six hours later Mikkelson got back into his truck — without completing any repairs or obtaining the required licences — and completed the drive to Invercargill.
He had also attempted to hide the non-operation order sticker attached to the front windscreen.
Mikkelson arrived in Invercargill about 7pm and delivered his load to an unknown destination.
Three hours later, parked on a street in Invercargill, he was located by police who found a bong and 21 grams of cannabis in the truck.
In further offending, Mikkelson was pulled over by a CVST officer on August 17 this year after he was seen on his phone while driving a Hino truck in Waipara. Again, he was without an up-to-date certificate of fitness or registration.
Mikkelson also did not have a logbook, which was required as he was driving a truck of more than 6000kg and travelling beyond 50km of his base.
Additionally, he had a road user licence displayed on the windscreen showing a maximum reading of 20,000km but the hubodometer fitted to his truck read 44,088km.
In court, counsel Jaiden Manera argued against a disqualification period, submitting such a sentence would impact Mikkelson’s business.
But Judge Quentin Hix considered this concerning, stating the offending was not minor.
He said it had been elevated by drug use and Mikkelson’s failure to adhere to the vehicle orders.
The judge then sentenced him to six months of community detention and 12 months of intensive supervision.
A six month disqualification on all licences was imposed in addition to an 18 month disqualification on class two to five vehicles.
Mikkelson was also ordered to pay $778 reparation for the drug tests.
-By Emily Moorhouse
Open Justice multimedia journalist
