A careless driver grinned as he dodged a ban despite causing a horror head-on crash involving a mum and son in Aberdeenshire.
Christopher Tracy lost control of his black Saab on the B9119 Aberdeen to Tarland road near Collie’s Yard, Midmar, and slammed into a vehicle coming in the opposite direction.
The other car, carrying a mum and son, was sent rolling into a ditch where it came to rest on its roof.
Despite the son suffering serious injuries and needing therapy for PTSD, Tracy, 35, was allowed to keep his driving licence and grinned as he left court while making an obscene hand gesture at The Press and Journal photographer.
Fiscal depute Carol Gammie told Aberdeen Sheriff Court the incident happened around 12.45pm on Sunday April 11 2021.
The court heard the mother had been driving eastbound in a BMW X5 with her 25-year-old son in the front passenger seat, while Tracy was going westbound on the same road.
The woman was travelling at around 55-60mph approaching a bend and saw a white car coming around the bend in front of Tracy’s black Saab, which seemed to be faster than the white car in front.
Ms Gammie said: “The woman saw the back end of the black car swing out towards the middle of the road.
“It looked like the accused tried to correct the vehicle’s position, but then lost control as his car snaked across the road.
“The front of his car ended up on the opposing side of the carriageway and hit the woman’s car at the front driver’s side.
“This caused the airbags to deploy and her vehicle then overturned and crashed down an embankment on its roof, where it came to rest, upside down in a ditch.”
Both the mum and son managed to get out of the wreckage themselves, but the son was bleeding heavily from an arm injury.
Tracy apologised to the pair and said he’d phoned for help. He stated he had “wobbled” on the corner.
Police arrived a short time later and saw both vehicles had sustained “extensive” damage.
‘Decided to follow Google Maps on this occasion’
The son was admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and found to have suffered “multiple ragged lacerations” to his left arm cutting right down to the tendon. It’s thought his arm went through the windscreen.
Glass debris was removed under general anaesthetic and he required follow-up appointments with the plastic surgery department as well as physiotherapy and pain management.
In October 2021, he was referred for psychological therapy due to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including nightmares.
His mother also suffered minor tissue damage and pain, described as “seatbelt injuries”, and was signed off work for two weeks.
Tracy, of Pope Road, St Neots, Cambridgeshire, had originally faced a charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, but prosecutors accepted a plea to the lesser charge of careless driving.
Defence agent Ian Woodward-Nutt said his client, an operator engineer at an energy waste plant, needed his driving licence to get to work.
He said: “On the day in question, he was driving from Aberdeen to visit his father in Lumphanan.
‘You will escape a ban today’
“He tells me he was not in any kind of hurry that day, however, he did not know the road and took a different route than he normally would having decided to follow Google Maps on this occasion.”
Mr Woodward-Nutt said Tracy, “with the benefit of hindsight”, accepted he had been going too fast.
He added there had also been mud on the road from an entrance to a field.
The solicitor said Tracy had been driving for 15 years without incident and described the crash as a “momentary misjudgement”.
Sheriff Ian Wallace told Tracy: “The risks would be clear. You were on a country road approaching a bend and travelling faster than the vehicle in front of you.
“That said, I appreciate this was a momentary rather than prolonged example of careless driving.
“You will escape a ban today.”
The sheriff instead handed Tracy nine penalty points and fined him £1,275.
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