Driver’s year ban for blind bend manoeuvre

A KILMELFORD driver who narrowly avoided a head- on collision as he overtook a car on a blind bend, has been banned from driving for a year.

Angus Files, 53, of The Glebe, who previously worked as an HGV driver, appeared in Oban sheriff court on Monday, September 28, accused of dangerous driving on the A816 on November 24 last year.

The court heard on that day, married couple, Donald and Helen McPherson, had been driving from Oban to Kilmelford, when Files overtook their vehicle on a blind bend, about a mile south of Oban.

As he turned the corner on the right-hand side of the road, a car was coming towards him, but Files managed to avoid a headon collision by sharply pulling his vehicle to the left-hand side of the carriageway, narrowly missing the McPhersons’ motor car by ‘inches’.

Files denied he had overtaken at an unsafe part of the road.

Procurator fiscal, Eoin McGinty, asked Mr McPherson to recount what happened. He said: ‘I couldn’t believe he was passing me on that bend. My wife said, “Oh my God”. It was a scary moment and I really thought we were going to crash.’

Files’ defence lawyer, Edward Thornton, asked Mr McPherson: ‘I put it to you that what you are saying is wrong, and Mr Files passed you safely on a different part of the carriageway.’

Mr McPherson replied: ‘ No, I put it to you that what you are saying is wrong. He should never have overtaken on that bend, and I could see a head- on collision coming. If I hadn’t hit the brake, he wouldn’t have made it. In some ways I still don’t know how he did make it.’

Mr Thornton continued: ‘I put it to you that the vehicle completed a safe manoeuvre with 100 metres to spare.’ But Mr McPherson replied: ‘If that was true, why would I go to the police? The man was driving dangerously. I was scared there would be a three- car collision.

‘There was nowhere for me to go to my left and, with my wife in the car, I thought we were going to be involved in a very serious crash. Why would I make up lies about this?’

The defence lawyer said that he was not suggesting the couple had ‘colluded a pack of lies’, but had got the location of the overtaking manoeuvre wrong, and it had in fact taken place on a safer stretch of the road.

However, Eoin McGinty pointed out that Mr McPherson, who has been driving for 60 years, had never previously reported another driver to the police.

Mrs McPherson also told the court that this was the only time she had reported another driver to the police in her 50 years behind the wheel. She added: ‘I was breathless, saying, “Oh no” and couldn’t quite believe an accident didn’t happen.

‘He just managed to squeeze in, in front of us. It was absolutely shocking.’

Eoin McGinty asked Files if he knew Mr or Mrs McPherson, or if there was any ‘ bad faith’ between them, to which he replied, “none whatsoever, we have never met before today”.

Mr McGinty then asked Files what would their motive be for coming to court today tell lies about him, to which he suggested it could be to cover up Mr McPherson’s own alleged erratic driving.

Mr McGinty said: ‘So, in order to cover up Mr McPherson’s own alleged dangerous driving, they have made up these malicious lies about you?

‘You are claiming they have made up a very calculated and malicious lie, reported it to the police and then perjured themselves in court, for no actual reason?’

Sheriff Ruth Anderson, QC, said there was reasonable doubt to the credibility of Files’ evidence, and convicted him of dangerous driving.

Disqualifying Files from driving for one year, she ordered him to sit an extended test when re-applying for his licence.

Sheriff Anderson also fined Files £400.