A motorist who caused a horrific crash by driving “like an idiot” told ambulance staff he still wanted to catch his flight to Spain.
A female passenger was seriously injured after 26-year-old amateur rally driver Freddie Milne lost control of his sports car in wet conditions on the M90 in Fife.
His southbound car went flying over the central barrier and smashed into a vehicle travelling on the northbound carriageway, narrowly missing others.
Yesterday, after a trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, Milne was found guilty of careless driving.
Milne, of Quarrybank, Durris, Aberdeenshire, denied that on July 2 2013 on the M90 northbound between junctions 3 and 4, he caused serious injury by driving dangerously at excessive speed in adverse wet weather conditions in poor visibility, without lights, drove in excess of 70mph, lost control of the vehicle, crossed the central reservation and collided with a northbound car injuring Mary Reid, a passenger and damaging other vehicles on the road.
The jury found that charge not proven but instead found him guilty of careless driving.
Milne was driving his father’s two-seater Honda sports car and was booked on a flight to Alicante when the accident occurred in heavy rain. He told the court his car had aquaplaned after hitting a patch of surface water.
Mary Reid had sustained injuries within the abdomen and a fracture of her lumber vertebrae.
She received a CT scan and excess fluid was located within the abdomen. She was operated on the same day.
Following further complications, she underwent four more operations the same month.
Michael Timms, of the Scottish Ambulance Service, who carried out observations on Milne after the accident, said in a statement that Milne “asked us if he could leave as he had a flight at 18.30 which was for Alicante”.
However, he was persuaded to go to the hospital for treatment to a head injury.
Sheriff Charles MacNair fined Milne £800 and banned him from driving for six months.