A van driver who caused a near-fatal pile-up on the Friarton Bridge at Perth had texted friends just minutes before asking them to help him stay awake.
Pardeep Dhaliwal sent a string of texts during an early-morning drive from Birmingham stating he was “falling asleep” and “having trouble staying awake.”
As he hit roadworks on the bridge, he ploughed into the back of a car, sending it careering into an artic lorry and causing devastating injuries to driver Anne Park from Abernethy.
Her car was trapped under the trailer of the lorry, hard up against the crash barrier separating the road from a drop of hundreds of feet to the river below. And there were fears the bridge could have suffered structural damage.
Dhaliwal (32), of Allen Road, Wolverhampton, stood trial accused of dangerous driving during the incident on June 22 last year.
Dhaliwal’s mobile phone was recovered from his van and examined by police to see if he had been using it at the time of the crash. Texts were recovered to and from the phone, including one from Dhaliwal which read, “Going to Aberdeen, falling asleep, still got 300 miles to go.”
Another sent later to a friend and his wife read, “Going to Aberdeen from Birmingham, having trouble staying awake, please help.”
A reply read, “Get some coffee down you.”
The court heard the crash happened at 7.25am as a queue of traffic slowed for roadworks at the eastern end of the bridge. Van driver Robert Roberts (47), from Coatbridge, was behind Dhaliwal and said he saw no indication of him slowing down.
“There was no change of speed or brake lights,” he said. “I thought he was going to go in front of me (in the fast lane) but that didn’t happen. I thought at first he had hit the back of the trailer but when I got out to see if he was all right, I noticed another motor under the trailer.”
Biomedical scientist Miss Park had to be cut free from her car and suffered a broken back and fractured skull as well as extensive damage to her teeth. She said she was only able to return full-time to work in Dundee in January and could not drive until March.
She said she has no recollection of the accident.
“I remember seeing the brake lights and hazard lights of the lorry in front of me. The next thing, it was nine o’clock in the morning and there was an ambulance man there and I asked him what happened.”
Dhaliwal admitted he had been tired and had stopped for a “power nap” at a service station on the M90 and sent the text as he set off again, just 10 to 15 minutes before the crash.
He said the tiredness during his journey, which had begun at 10pm the previous evening, was “almost like being drunk, slow reactions, not being aware of what’s around.”
He denied sleeping as he crashed but said he did not realise the traffic was stationary until “it was too late.”
Finding Dhaliwal guilty, Sheriff Michael Fletcher said, “He was seen to drive straight into the back of a vehicle. That would indicate to me that he was asleep.”
Dhaliwal, who will lose his HGV driver job as a result of his conviction, was fined £700 and banned from driving for 18 months.