A 24-year-old university student who was fined $1,000 last month and disqualified from driving for 11 months for speeding appealed his suspension, which caused the judge to wish he had imposed a harsher sentence.

Roy Tang Tien Foo, a mechanical engineering student from Nanyang Technological University, was caught streaking down the Kranji Expressway at 170kmh in August 2011. The speed limit is 90kmh.

A police officer conducting a speed trap tracked Tang's car with a speed laser gun at about 1.05am, and Tang was later stopped on Pioneer Road North.

District Judge John Ng said Tang was "acting in a highly irresponsible manner by travelling at such an excessive speed".

However, he had decided to give Tang a chance by not imposing a 12-month suspension, which would have led to him losing his licence.

Yet on hindsight, he said he should have imposed a suspension of 12 months on Tang, who had showed a "complete lack of insight that our roads are meant for safe and shared use".

Judge Ng said Tang's offence ought to qualify to be within the band of the most serious of speeding cases here.