Smashed through roundabouts
A motorist drove straight through two roundabouts, damaging signs worth almost £3000.
Michael Kelbie, of Northwood Road, Tullibody, had also been seen earlier on the morning of September 30 leaving a Vauxhall Astra which had just crashed into a lamppost in Stirling.
The 34-year-old admitted charges of drink driving, dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention and two charges of failing to stop and give his details following an accident.
Fiscal depute Ashley Smith told Stirling Sheriff Court on Wednesday that a witness heard the sound of a vehicle crashing in Park Terrace, Stirling, about 12.40am on September 30.
They saw a Vauxhall Astra lying against a lamppost and two men running away from the vehicle. One of the men looked like Kelbie.
The damage to the lamppost cost £320.
At 2.30am that morning two people were driving from Stirling to Dunfermline on the A907 when they noticed a Citroen van travelling west.
They saw the van entering the Dumyat roundabout but instead of going left it mounted the roundabout and struck a direction sign.
The vehicle continued and they followed it in their car. They saw the van do the same thing at the Blackgrange roundabout.
Ms Smith said the damage to the Dumyat roundabout was £1500 and £1100 for the Blackgrange roundabout.
Police went to the street where the van was registered. They met Kelbie there and formed the opinion he had been drinking but he denied it.
Breath samples gave a reading of 34mg (the limit is 22).
Sheriff William Gilchrist pointed out the reading was “relatively low” and did not explain why Kelbie had driven across a roundabout.
Kelbie’s lawyer Fraser McCready said his client had distracted by trying to access a sat-nav app on his mobile phone.
Sheriff Gilchrist said that might explain one roundabout but not two.
Mr McCready explained that Kelbie agreed to meet up with some friends in the Stirling area to attend a music event. He was driving his Vauxhall Astra before “he had some kind of skid” and had been driving too quickly for the road conditions.
Kelbie went back to a friend’s house and they were drinking. He got a taxi back home and decided to take a friend’s van to see someone in Bannockburn.
Mr McCready said Kelbie “wasn’t entirely sure where he was going” and was not concentrating. That was why he struck the road signs.
Sheriff Gilchrist said: “It’s pretty bizarre though.”
Mr McCready said Kelbie had not been drinking since the incident and had expressed remorse and regret.
Being disqualified from driving would have an impact on Kelbie’s job as well as his daughter.
His criminal record was slight with the last conviction in 2002, said the solicitor.
Mr McCready also pointed out that Kelbie had received a bill from Clackmannanshire Council for the damage to their road signs.
Sheriff Gilchrist told Kelbie he found aspects of the case “very odd” adding: “I can understand the difficulty with the satnav at one roundabout but I’m not clear at all how you hit the second.
“You were over the alcohol limit but not by very much. You were not so drunk that it would explain dangerous driving.”
Kelbie was sentenced to a total of 130 hours’ unpaid work and £360. He was also disqualified from driving for 16 months.
You were not so drunk that it would explain dangerous driving