You stupid trucker
Lorry driver banned after ignoring high wind warnings and forcing mercy dash medics to take huge diversion
AN AMBULANCE taking a sick child to hospital had to take a long detour after a trucker ignored wind warnings and forced the Forth road bridge to close. Juozas Zilvys drove past at least six warning signs saying the crossing was shut to high-sided vehicles. His lorry was blown over on the bridge, forcing it to close and causing major traffic disruption. Yesterday, Zilvys was fined £2500 and banned from driving for 30 months. Sheriff Charles Macnair told him: “You chose to take your lorry on the Forth road bridge knowing that you shouldn’t have done so because of the warning signs.
“That was an extremely dangerous thing to do and it was only by the greatest of good fortune that no one was seriously injured or worse.”
Zilvys, a Lithuanian national, was on his way from Glasgow to Dunfermline in March when his lorry overturned, blocking the north-bound carriageway and damaging the central reservation.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard the ambulance taking the child to hospital in Edinburgh was diverted via the Kincardine Bridge.
Depute fiscal Azrah Yousaf said: “It took some three-and-half-hours for the bridge to be cleared.”
Zilvys, 56, admitted driving dangerously by ignoring road signs.
His solicitor Roshni Joshi said: “Mr Zilvys did see pictorial signs but he was perhaps unclear of the meaning.
“He did know that he should not have gone.”
Joshi added that Zilvys had expressed remorse for the damage and inconvenience caused by his “sheer recklessness”.
At Edinburgh Sheriff Court in March, Aleksander Niemiec, 55, from Cheshire, was banned from driving for two years after he ignored closure signs on the Forth road bridge in January.
His HGV also overturned and the crossing was closed for 19 hours.