Driver caught at twice limit near hospital

Male motorist was clocked by camera travelling at 67mph in a 30mph zone beside Fife College

A driver was caught travelling at more than twice the speed limit near a hospital and a college on a busy Dunfermline street.

Camera operators were shocked to clock the motorist hitting 67mph on Halbeath Road passing Lynebank Hospital and Fife College, where the limit is 30mph.

The offence occurred at midday on Thursday when the area would have been bustling with students and shoppers at the Asda supermarket nearby.

It also occurred on a stretch of the A907 where people have been killed and seriously injured in road accidents.

Both camera operators and local councillors slammed the male motorist’s potentially deadly behaviour.

East Safety Camera Unit manager Andy Jones said: “The reason a safety camera van visits this location is because there is a history of people being injured on this road.

“This is a busy location and has a college and hospital nearby.

“This driver has paid no heed to the speed limit and has put his own and other lives at risk by driving so recklessly.”

He said the motorist would soon be hearing from the unit and reported to the procurator fiscal for the offence.

Dunfermline Central councillor Jim Leishman said the incident was particularly worrying in the wake of Sunday’s accident on the Standing Stane Road, near Kirkcaldy, which claimed the life of 17-year-old Ethan King.

He said: “This is a busy road and there are speed restrictions there.

“Driving at this speed is against the law and he shouldn’t have been doing it. This was more than twice the speed limit.”

Fellow ward councillor Alan Craig said speeding was a problem which was difficult to overcome.

He said: “No matter what rules and regulations are in place, what calming measures are in place, you are always going to get idiots racing along.”

There have been a series of serious and fatal road collisions on Halbeath Road, which is a dual carriageway.

Two teenagers were killed and three others injured, two of them critically, in a horrific crash in December 2000 when a car left the road and hit the boundary wall of the hospital.

A 21-year-old died when the BMW he was driving collided with a Land Rover at the roundabout near Asda eight years ago.

A year earlier a 23-year-old pedestrian was seriously injured when he was struck by a car near the entrance to Dunfermline Autocentre.

And in 2012 a cyclist was seriously injured when he was struck by a car near the Linburn Road junction.

No matter what rules and regulations are in place ...you are always going to get idiots racing along