Driver dodges jail time over cyclist death
Motorist given community work for unsafe overtaking that killed dad
A MOTORIST avoided jail yesterday after killing a cyclist by overtaking carelessly.
David Gordon didn’t see dad of two Gary Christie coming towards him as he switched sides of the road to pass another cyclist at a blind summit.
Gary, 38, was fatally injured and died in hospital two weeks later.
Gordon, 56, was told to do 300 hours’ community payback work and banned from driving for 10 years.
Lord Menzies ruled that a prison sentence would nt be appropriate but told him: “It must not be forgotten throughout all of this that Mr Christie was an innocent man who was just going about his daily routine of cycling to work and who was killed in the prime of his life.”
Scott Shields, the cyclist Gordon overtook, told a trial of the horrific moment when Gary was hit head on.
He said: “I heard a bang just a second after he (the motorist) passed. I got off my bike and ran to the guy lying on the road. The car had stopped just a wee bit further on.”
A background report showed Gordon took full responsibility. He admitted he should have waited until he was over the brow of a hill at Carberry Road, Kirkcaldy, before overtaking. He had suffered nightmares about the noise of the collision on November 1, 2016, the report said.
Gordon, of Dysart, Fife, had offered to plead guilty to death by careless driving but the Crown tried him for death by dangerous driving.
But a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted him of the lesser charge.
Lord Menzies told Gordon: “If you had been convicted of causing death by dangerous driving it would, I think, have been almost inevitable that I would have imposed a sentence of imprisonment on you.”