Nick Cave offered driver training after Hove speed camera smash (From The Argus)

Nick Cave offered driver training after Hove speed camera smash

1:47pm Monday 24th January 2011 in Quirkies

Singer Nick Cave has been offered driver training as an alternative to prosecution after crashing into a seafront speed camera, sources said today.

The 53-year-old musician was behind the wheel of a Jaguar saloon when it collided with the speed camera and a roadside barrier on December 7 last year.

The crash happened at 7pm on the eastbound carriageway at Kingsway in Hove close to where Australian-born Cave lives.

No other vehicles were involved and Cave was not arrested. The singer and his twin 10-year-old sons, who were also in the car, walked away unharmed from the crash.

Sources said today that Cave - frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - has now been offered a place on a driver training improvement scheme.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "The driver was voluntarily interviewed by police and a decision was made to offer him a place on a driver improvement scheme as an alternative to prosecution."

Photographer Darren Cool, 26, who witnessed the aftermath of the crash, said he instantly recognised the driver as Cave.

He said: "When I first saw the speed camera, I thought it would make a decent weather picture because the conditions were icy at the time.

"Then I saw Nick Cave stumbling around in and out of the car and started taking some pictures.

"He looked pretty shaken up by the whole thing."

Wags scrawled "Nick Cave waz ere Xmas 2010" on the bent speed camera, which belonged to the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.

A spokeswoman for Cave declined to comment.