Doctor spared driving ban after saving life of biker he crashed into
A DOCTOR who left a biker paralysed by pulling out of a junction may have saved the victim’s life by treating him at the scene.
Dr Robert Allan failed to spot George Stark despite the motorcyclist wearing high-visibility clothing, a white helmet and displaying daytime LED lighting.
Mr Stark was left severely injured and may only have survived as a result of the emergency treatment Allan and others gave him at the scene of the crash. Allan, 76, was found guilty after a trial but was fined just £400 and had four penalty points imposed by Sheriff James MacDonald at Perth Sheriff Court yesterday.
Sheriff MacDonald said he was unable to take Mr Stark’s injuries into account because it was a careless driving charge.
He said Mr Stark was travelling well below the speed limit at the time of the collision and Allan had an unobstructed view of the road for at least 99m (108 yards).
‘Mr Stark was visible to the accused before the accused commenced the right-turn manoeuvre,’ Sheriff MacDonald concluded at the end of a four-day trial.
‘The accused pulled out onto the A93 into the path of the motorcycle ridden by Mr Stark. The collision occurred because the accused failed to keep a lookout and failed to give way to an oncoming motorcycle. ‘I did not find Dr Allan’s account to be a reliable one. It could not be the case, as he suggested, that there was nothing to see. Mr Stark was visible and travelling within the speed limit.’
Solicitor Ann Bonomy, defending, said: ‘Dr Allan rendered CPR to Mr Stark for a significant time. There were other medical persons present and without that Mr Stark may have lost his life.’
The trial heard that Mr Stark was catapulted through the air in the horror crash on August 25 last year, which was caught on film by another member of his Edinburghbased motorcycle club.
Ambulance manager William Halley, 57, told the trial he was behind Mr Stark and filmed the collision. The court was shown footage taken by his bike’s camera equipment and by the GoPro on his helmet.
Allan, of Hartford, Cambridgeshire, had denied pulling out onto the A93 Perth to Blairgowrie road, near Scone, without checking the road properly, saying it would have been a ‘kamikaze action’.
He was found guilty of causing severe injury to Mr Stark by driving carelessly into the path of his motorcycle and throwing him into the air.