Tuesday 10 May 2022 08:17 PM Wheelchair-bound Madison Cawthorn is seen speeding in a Mercedes trends now

GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn has proven himself as a lawmaker who delights in disregarding the laws of the road.

Now video obtained by DailyMail.com shows Cawthorn, who lost the use of his legs in a 2014 auto accident, flouting all laws of safety as he speeds along in a powerful Mercedes C class that has not been modified for hand control driving.

The video was filmed in 2019 just months before he filed his candidacy for North Carolina's 11th congressional district. 

Today Cawthorn, 26, is facing a legal reckoning for his traffic violations with court dates looming for the most recent of his slew of offenses – 'extreme speeding' and driving on a revoked license.

In the video, which he posted on his Instagram page three years ago, the smiling representative is seen excitedly demonstrating how he plans to rig the controls so that he can manipulate the pedals using a stick – torn from a hedge and whittled with his 'trusty old Zero Tolerance knife.'

He immediately seems to lose partial control of the car as he drives off one-handed, bringing criticism to his actions.  

Lindsey Granados, senior managing attorney at the law offices of Wiley Nickel – a Democrat who is running for Congress in a different district in North Carolina – called Cawthorn’s actions in the video reckless and dangerous.

'Utilizing a stick, just a regular old stick, to operate gas and brake pedals is reckless and shows a complete disregard for the law and safety of others,' Granados, who has represented thousands of people charged with driving offenses, told DailyMail.com.

'I’ve been watching in the news his frequent encounters with law enforcement in North Carolina,' Granados added. 

'Obviously in this instance, it appears he may be driving in Italy based on the title of the video and the vineyard in the background. I don’t know that anybody in the states can necessarily hold him accountable for this, legally speaking, due to a lack of jurisdiction. 

'But common sense would tell you this is not a good idea.' 

Cawthorn's spokesman joked about the video. 'The rumors are true,' he said. 'Congressman Cawthorn can drive stick.'

Cawthorn has been in a wheelchair since 2014 when he was in the passenger seat of a vehicle that went off the road when his then best-friend driver Bradley Ledford, 26, fell asleep at the wheel.

The two were on spring break in Florida at the time. Cawthorn, who had been sitting with his feet on the dashboard suffered serious injury including a spinal fracture at his T11 vertebrae leading to partial paralysis. 

Cawthorn gives the location for the newly emerged video as the five-star luxury resort of L'Andana in Tuscany, Italy, and is apparently expressing his disappointment over his rental car.

Passing a Mercedes C class in a parking lot he explains that he regrets that he did not request that model of car with hand controls.

He says, 'It's something I've always wanted to drive but I didn't order with hand controls because we were supposed to kind of get more of a not-fun car.'

He continues 'Because we don't have any hand controls we're just going to see if we can find a good old-fashioned stick.'

Smiling, Cawthorn addresses the camera as he breaks a stick from a hedge and explains, 'I've got my old trusty Zero Tolerance knife right here.'

Cutting the stick he makes, 'some little notches' so he can have, 'the perfect handle on it.'

Cawthorn is then seen accelerating off in the car after boasting, 'Okay so we got launch control on, we got the stick, let's see what we can do with this bad boy. Here we go.'

At one point he says, 'It's really difficult with one hand,' and whoops as he 'loses [control of] the back end' of the car before grinning and saying, 'This is so much fun'.