An uninsured motorist has been banned from driving after he reversed his BMW across the A90 into the path of an 84-year-old’s car.
Latif Sarok said he was trying to avoid a traffic jam when he backed up for about 20 to 30 yards down the dual carriageway.
Retired farmer Janet Muirhead said she had no time to act when she saw Sarok’s car travelling backwards into her lane.
The front of her car smashed into the passenger side of Sarok’s reversing motor, sending it spinning across the road.
“I just don’t know what he was trying to do,” she said.
“It was ridiculous.”
Sarok, from Birmingham, went on trial at Perth Sheriff Court, denying a charge of dangerous driving near the Inchmichael junction on May 15 last year.
At the end of the hearing, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood said he had “no hesitation” in finding the 28-year-old guilty.
Sarok was also convicted of driving without insurance.
‘Right in his ribs’
Mrs Muirhead, now 85, told the trial she was driving west in her Audi with her son Gavin, when Sarok shot into her path.
“We were doing about 55mph.
“As I was driving along, the car in front of me went to the left.
“By the time I noticed what was going on, I was faced with this other car coming towards me.”
She said: “It happened all of a sudden.
“He slewed backwards into the fast lane and I got him right in the ribs, as they say.”
Mrs Muirhead told the court she slammed on the brakes as soon as she saw Sarok’s car, but couldn’t avoid a collision.
Asked by fiscal depute Andrew Harding if she was hurt, she said: “No, but I was left shaken.”
She said she later saw Sarok getting out of his car and “collapsing” on the roadside.
Her car was written off, the court heard.
Distressing
Mrs Muirhead’s son Gavin, 53, added: “This car came across from the overtaking lane in front of us.
“It was reversing across the road, so we hit it side on.
“Mum hit the brake as soon as she saw it but there was nothing we could do.
“I was in shock. It was very distressing.”
The court heard this was the second crash on the same stretch of road that day.
Sarok, an asylum seeker who worked as a truck driver in his native Kurdistan, said he had been travelling to meet someone in Perth when he came across traffic at a standstill.
“I checked the sat nav and reversed to get to the exit,” he said.
Asked by solicitor David Holmes if he put his hazard lights on and checked his mirror, Sarok said: “Yes, I didn’t see any vehicle and that’s why I reversed to the exit.”
Sarok, of Soho Road, was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and disqualified from driving for a year.
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