Bad Day for Jay Kay

09/07/2004 8:20 PM, E! Online
Charlie Amter

What do British pop singer Jay Kay and Sammy Hagar have in common? Neither can drive 55.

The lead singer of the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning U.K. band Jamiroquai had his license yanked for six months on Monday after admitting to recklessly speeding down a Scotland road in February.

Kay, notorious for his speeding "habit," is a collector of sports cars and counts a 2002 Ferrari Spider as one of his many tight whips; another of his souped-up rides features the vanity plate V8 JAY.

The 34-year-old "Supersonic" singer has had numerous run-ins with traffic cops in the past. This marks the singer's fourth speeding conviction and the second time he has lost his license. In 1998, Kay wound up parked after getting caught doing in excess of 100 mph in his Ferrari F40, according to British media reports.

In a calculated act of contrition this time, Kay decided against pleading virtual insanity and tried to explain to a Scottish judge why he felt compelled to overtake a string of cars at around 105 miles per hour. "I'd set out early in the morning but had become stuck behind slow moving traffic on the single-carriageway road," he wrote in a July letter.

"That meant I had been traveling for four hours at an average of about 30 miles an hour (48 km/h) by this stage," Kay continued. "I was not driving a fast sports car but a four-wheel drive vehicle, which meant I wanted to make the most of this overtaking opportunity."

Kay's plan backfired, however, as Scottish courts are apparently unsympathetic to pop stars who have places to be. The presiding judge revoked Kay's license for six months and fined him about $1,340 at Monday's sentencing, with Kay and his lawyer present.

Asked to comment on Monday's court proceedings, the funky hat-wearing frontman deadpaned "thrilling." He added: "There's nothing more to say. Bastards!"

Apart from his speeding tickets, Kay has kept a relatively low profile since Jamiroquai's heyday in the late-1990s. The singer was cleared of charges he punched photographer Dennis Gill in 2001. More recently he has been recording a new record in New York set for a Nov. 1 release date in Europe, with an early-2005 U.S. release date, according to Sony Music sources. Jamiroquai's last album was 2001's A Funk Odyssey.

Now, with his license on ice for the next six months, Kay will have to live up to the title of his band's biggest hit: Travelling Without Moving.