A pair of teenagers who caused a horrific accident on one of Perthshire’s most dangerous roads have been told they were “every driver’s nightmare”.
Josh Roberts and Darren Beattie crashed in tandem in wet conditions on the notorious A85 road between Comrie and Crieff on May 9 last year. They had each been driving for just a few weeks and were both driving a car packed with friends as they lost control when, one after the other, they braked sharply for a tight corner.
A combination of excess speed for the poor road conditions and the harsh application of his brakes saw inexperienced driver Beattie (18) swerve around the road, veer on to a grass verge and strike a wall before rolling his vehicle. It came to a rest partially blocking the carriageway.
Roberts (19) also slammed on his brakes and lost control, with his vehicle veering on to the wrong side of the road. There it met and collided with a SAAB 95 estate car, driven by an off-duty firefighter, before coming to rest blocking the road.
Four of the young passengers, among them Roberts’ brother, sustained injuries and were taken by ambulance to hospital.
X-rays revealed that both the passengers in Roberts’ vehicle a Fiat Punto had sustained a cracked sternum. Two of the three passengers in Beattie’s Citreon a gift from his mother for passing his driving test just three weeks earlier needed more serious hospital treatment. One had to undergo a small operation to remove glass from a cut to his elbow.
”The other passenger was not so lucky and had a quite dreadful cut to one of her fingers,” depute fiscal Stuart Richardson told Perth Sheriff Court. ”It was thought that she might lose her finger altogether but thanks to doctors it was preserved, though only after the insertion of 40 stitches.”
Sheriff Robert McCreadie said: ”It is every driver’s nightmare to have two young idiots like you around the next corner both of you apparently oblivious to the risks you are posing to yourselves and to others. It is only through good fortune that no-one was killed.”
Beattie, of Manse Road in Braco, admitted driving carelessly and at excessive speed for the road conditions on the A85 near to the Ochtertyre Estate and that while negotiating a left-hand bend, he lost control of his vehicle, resulting in it colliding with a wall, causing injury to two passengers in his vehicle.
Roberts, of Shieling Hill Road in Crieff, pled guilty to a similar charge, admitting that he drove carelessly and at excessive speed for the road conditions and that while negotiating the same bend he braked hard due to the vehicle immediately ahead, causing him to lose control and collide with an oncoming vehicle, damaging both and causing injury to two passengers.
Sheriff McCreadie fined each of them £360 and endorsed their driving licences with eight penalty points.