A dangerous driver who caused a Christmas Eve collision on the A87 did not have a valid licence to drive her hire car, a court has heard.
Tong Lo overtook on a bend into the path of oncoming traffic and collided with another car, flipping it onto its roof.
When police arrived to investigate they discovered that she did not have a valid licence, which meant the rental vehicle she was driving was also not insured.
Lo appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to plead guilty to charges of dangerous driving as well as three further charges relating to her lack of valid licence or insurance.
Fiscal depute Emma MacEwan told the court that on Christmas Eve last year a witness travelling westbound on the A87 near to Auchtertyre spotted Lo’s dark-coloured hire car overtaking them from behind as the road bent to the right.
Dangerous driver crossed solid white lines
Ms MacEwan said: “The vehicle had crossed over solid white lines.”
At the same time, a vehicle travelling eastbound was rounding the bend and saw Lo’s car heading towards him in his lane.
“The vehicles struck front offside to front offside,” the fiscal depute said.
The impact of the collision caused the oncoming vehicle to leave the road, turn over and land on its roof.
When a witness performed an emergency stop to avoid the collision, they were hit by the car behind them.
Police were called and Lo identified herself as the driver of the hire car, she produced both a full Chinese driving licence and a UK provisional driving licence.
Tests revealed that Lo had no alcohol in her system and she, along with the other drivers, were taken to hospital as a precaution.
The driver of the car that flipped off the road suffered bruising and pain to the right shoulder and chest as well as bruising to the face, the other witness was left with a sore neck. Lo herself suffered bruising to the chest.
Dangerous driver accepts ‘full responsibility’
Lo represented herself in court and told Sheriff Gary Aitken that she accepted full responsibility for the collision.
She explained that she had been a licenced driver for seven years in Macau and had also held an international driver’s licence, but had not realised that applying for a provisional licence in the UK would render this obsolete.
Sheriff Aitken fined Lo, of Micawber Street, London, £640 for the dangerous driving and banned her from the roads for 12 months.
After that time she will have to sit and pass the extended test if she wishes to drive again in the UK.
She was admonished on all other charges.
