A finance manager has been fined for running over a teenager’s bike, despite being unable to say how the accident happened.
Hazel Johnston accepted her Range Rover Evoque had collided with the boy’s bicycle at the rear of her car but maintained she had not reversed.
The situation prompted an exasperated sheriff to ask: “How big is the tail swing on an Evoque? It’s not exactly an HGV, is it?”
Hit bike with car
Fiscal depute Jill Currie told Dunfermline Sheriff Court the 17-year-old cyclist had been at the skate park with friends on the afternoon of the incident and the group had travelled to Transy Place.
She said: “The locus is a public road on Transy Place, near the junction with Park Place.
“The complainer was sitting on his bike but with one foot pushing himself along.
“He went between a parked car and the Range Rover.
“Both parties are moving and there’s a collision.
“His bike is struck and she then drives off.
“He was uninjured. It was a minor collision but there was some damage to the bike – the wheel was bent.
“The accused was traced and replied: ‘That’s not what happened’.”
‘Panicked and drove off’
Solicitor Roshni Joshi, defending, said Johnston needs her licence to drive across Scotland in her role as a regional manager in the finance sector.
She said the 28-year-old had left the scene because other teenagers in the group were intimidating her.
She said: “It’s a sharp bend and she was driving extremely carefully.
“The complainer cut across her vehicle, having come from a lane on the left.
“She sounded her horn to make them aware of her presence.
“Her position is that they did not take kindly to this and began to hit her vehicle with fists to intimidate her.
“She was on her own and panicked and drove off. She accepts a collision occurred.
“She recognises with the benefit of hindsight she did not do things as they should have been done.”
Careless driving
Ms Joshi said the child was at the rear of the vehicle, with other teenagers banging on the car at the front and that as she drove off Johnston had seen the damaged car behind her.
However, she said Johnston maintained she had not reversed the vehicle into the teenager.
Sheriff James MacDonald acknowledged Johnston had accepted a collision had occurred and said the case met the requirements for a careless driving charge.
Johnston, of Transy Place, Dunfermline, admitted the October 7 offence.
Sheriff MacDonald fined her £500 and put four penalty points on her licence.
