1 week Ago
A woman has been banned from the roads for 16 months and fined £480 for three car crashes, including one which saw her car mount a Mercedes. Susan Taylor, of Brodie Place, Elgin was sentenced at Elgin Sheriff Court on Thursday for three driving offences in three separate vehicles. The first incident, fiscal depute Karen Poke said, happened on April 7, 2023.
Taylor, the court heard, was “attempting to park directly outside the store known as Emporium” on Elgin High Street when she “reversed and collided with a motorcycle directly behind the vehicle”. After the collision, her black Toyota was “driven forward, before reversing again”. At that stage, Ms Poke added, the motorbike “acted like a ramp” and Taylor’s car “mounted the bonnet and windscreen on the car immediately behind”.
The incident, captured on dashcam footage, ended when the woman’s vehicle “came to rest fully in a parking space”. Police attended after the crash and spoke to the 61-year-old, who the court heard has multiple sclerosis (MS), and were told she had recently changed from a “manual to an automatic disability car”. Ms Poke added that the driver had “panicked” after hitting the motorbike for the first time.
The second incident, 10 days later on April 17, 2023, began when a nearby witness in his house heard a “loud bang”. Going to investigate, the man saw that a car driven by Taylor had hit his camper van on North Street, Elgin. After the crash, the fiscal depute said she was seen to be “very anxious” and the 61-year-old told police that she “couldn’t used to the vehicle”.
The final incident occurred at the car park for Moray Leisure Centre, on Borough Briggs Road in Elgin. At around 11.15am, Ms Poke told the court, a “witness driving with his wife and children in the car” was passing a junction in the car park.
However, before the man’s car had fully cleared the junction, “the accused has collided with his vehicle”. The 61-year-old “sole occupant of the vehicle” previously admitted she did “mount a pavement, collide with a railing, and bring your vehicle to a rest in the middle of the road” during the incident. The man whose car Taylor crashed into, and his wife and children, were “very shaken up by the incident”.
Solicitor Megan Lee said the incidents were the result of her client struggling to adjust to driving a Motability car, which uses hand controls. Ms Lee said driving was the “only source of independence” for the 61-year-old, who has a “diagnosis of multiple sclerosis”. The DVLA had already revoked Taylor’s driving licence in the wake of the incidents, and to get her licence back she have to sit a specific test specifically for hand controlled vehicles.
However, Ms Lee said she was aware that her client could face a court-ordered ban form holding a license. However, being able to drive again would be “very much dependent on her health” at the time the ban expires. Sentencing, Sheriff Anderson disqualified Taylor for holding a driving license for 16 months and fined her a total of £480.
.
