Sheriff describes ‘road rage’ pair as ‘two grown men acting like children

A SHERIFF described two drivers who got into a ‘road rage’ incident on the Glenfinnan to Kinlocheil stretch of the A830 road as ‘two grown men acting like children’ when one of them appeared in court last week.

Bartlomiej Nosowicz, who was living in Morar at the time of the incident on July 8 last year, but is now resident in Edinburgh, appeared at Fort William Sheriff Court and pleaded guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, following another vehicle and driving too close, overtaking and then stopping his vehicle in the road, exiting the vehicle and acting in an aggressive manner and spitting on the ground.

Procurator Fiscal Robert Weir said the altercation between Nosowicz, 31, and the driver of the other car happened shortly after 9.15am on the day in question.

A father of two, Nosowicz was travelling east in an Audi. The other car involved was a VW Passat driven by a man with a female passenger.

‘It is clear there was some altercation and disagreement between the two drivers,’ explained Mr Weir. ‘However, there is no suggestion of excessive speed being involved, with both vehicles travelling about 60mph.’

Mr Weir told the court after the Audi and the Passat had overtaken a slower moving third vehicle in front of them, the Audi had eventually stopped in the road ahead of the Passat, causing the Passat to stop and both drivers got out.

Mr Weir said, to be fair to the accused, the sheriff should know the driver of the Passat had taken hold of the offside wing mirror of Nosowicz’s Audi and threatened to break it.

Mr Weir added: ‘Witnesses say the accused was being aggressive and then spat on the ground.’ Both men got back into their vehicles and headed to the police station in Fort William where Nosowicz was charged with a road traffic offence and assault.

Defence agent Stephen Kennedy said his client was a single man, currently between jobs. He normally works as vehicle body shop worker.

Mr Kennedy said his client had told him the Passat had come up behind his car very fast and then sat on his tail for some distance before overtaking.

‘When Mr Nosowicz looked across,’ said Mr Kennedy, ‘he saw a man and a woman, possibly in their early 20s, at which point the Passat’s driver pointed his finger in the air and made a gesture.

‘Mr Nosowicz reacted and did the same and then followed the Passat,’ added Mr Kennedy.

Nosowicz then overtook the Passat and stopped further along the road, with the other car also stopping on what Mr Kennedy described as a stretch of the road with no other vehicles on it.

Mr Kennedy continued: ‘There was a verbal confrontation and Mr Nosowicz said he was going to report the matter to police. The other driver threatened to make trouble for Mr Nosowicz and in effect what followed was a race to the police station.

‘When Mr Nosowicz got to police station, officers were already taking statements from the occupants of the other car.’

Mr Kennedy added that the incident was essentially a case of ‘road rage’, at which point Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald pointed out there was no specific offence of road rage.

However, in fining Nosowicz £540, Sheriff MacDonald told him: ‘What I have heard is two grown men acting like children, but you are the one who ended up getting charged.’