A teenager branded a hero when he dragged his friends from a fireball after crashing his car near Perth has been blamed for the collision.
Lee Smith lost control of his Peugeot 106 as he drove four friends home from McDonald’s, smashing it into a car being driven the other way.
The 18-year-old apprentice car mechanic from Crieff shrugged off his own injuries to pull his friends from the burning wreckage during the incident on March 22.
However, he was charged for his part in the collision and appeared at Perth Sheriff Court on Tuesday.
The court heard that Smith was approaching a right-hand bend at Lochty on the A85 Perth to Crieff road when he struck the nearside verge and hit the oncoming car.
Former Crieff High pupil Smith broke his collar bone in the impact and also suffered burns to his face as his car became engulfed in flames.
Despite this he hauled his passengers Rachel Palmer (18) Emma McAllister, Danielle Brunton and Mark Reilly (all 17) to safety before passing out.
They had suffered various broken bones, cuts, bruises and burns but none were badly hurt.
The other driver Michael Poznanski (65) escaped from his Nissan Primera with a broken thumb.’Bad driving’Smith’s solicitor Rosemary Scott insisted her client was driving no faster than 40mph when he lost control because of a slippy substance on the road.
She said: ”He felt the car sliding or gliding, similar to the sensation of being on snow or ice.
”He wondered if there was oil or petrol on the road as it wasn’t far from a petrol station. He believes if he had slightly longer he could have controlled the car.
”He was in the course of righting the car when the other car came towards him.”
Smith pled guilty to careless driving and, despite his subsequent actions, Sheriff Michael Fletcher was in no doubt where the blame lay.
He said: ”This was a nasty accident that could have had very serious consequences and it was caused by what appears to have been bad driving.
”For that reason I think it comes in the higher range of the careless driving scale.”’I thought my pals were dead’He fined Smith £450 and imposed nine penalty points on his driving licence.
Smith made no comment as he left court but previously said: ”I thought my pals were dead. I was shouting to them but they didn’t answer and they weren’t moving or anything.
”The car was already on fire but I managed to get out and then I helped the first person out from the passenger side.
”By the time I got the fourth person out, the whole car was on fire.
”Then I passed out again. The next thing I remember is waking up with paramedics all around me.”