Several people were lucky to escape unharmed after a drunken theatre tech crashed while overtaking a lorry on the A9 in Perthshire.
Courteney Drakos was heading north for a kayaking trip the morning after a late-night drinking session.
She veered her Vauxhall Vectra in front of an HGV, before losing control and hitting a crash barrier.
Her smashed-up vehicle bounced backwards into the middle of the carriageway.
The 36-year-old was back at Perth Sheriff Court on Wednesday, having earlier pleaded guilty to driving while nearly five times the legal limit on the A9, near Auchterarder, on October 11, last year.
She was fined £400 and disqualified from driving for 32 months.
‘Potential casualties’
Sheriff William Wood told Drakos he was impressed that she had travelled from her new home in Belfast to Perth for sentencing, while under an interim ban.
“You were lucky not to have been seriously hurt as a result of this crash,” he said. “But the lorry driver and two other people using the road at the time were also very lucky.
“All of them were potential casualties.”
Drakos, who was living in Glasgow at the time, had set off for a kayaking exhibition just hours after a late night drinking binge.
Fiscal depute Andrew Harding said witnesses told police they saw Drakos’ car in lane two, just after 11am.
“They saw it pass a lorry before losing control and swerve in front of the lorry,” he said,
“It then collided with a roadside crash barrier, before being spun back towards the carriageway.
“The car came to a halt across lane two and the central reservation.”
Mr Harding said: “The car was extensively damaged on all four sides, and a front offside wheel detaching completely.
“The three witnesses assisted the accused out of the passenger side of her vehicle. She was the sole occupant of the car, and they noticed a smell of alcohol.”
Drinking til 2am
Drakos later admitted to police she was the driver of the car that morning and agreed to be breathalysed.
She had 100 mic of alcohol in 100 ml of breath, with the legal limit being 22 mic.
Solicitor Paul Ralph said his client had been drinking until about 2am.
“The lesson has sunk in,” he said.