A driver was “fortunate” not to cause a high-speed crash when she stopped on a M90 exit slip then crossed chevrons to rejoin the motorway after going the wrong way.
Huong Nguyen was seen performing the dangerous manoeuvre while travelling north in her blue Mercedes at Junction 2A- the A92 exit towards Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy – on a dark February evening this year.
The 36-year-old nail salon worker, from Edinburgh, told her trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court that her sat nav had taken her the wrong way and claimed her actions to correct this were careless rather than dangerous.
Dashcam footage from a passing unmarked police car, played in court, shows cars behind Nguyen’s Mercedes braking sharply or moving into the other lane of the slip road to take evasive action as her car comes to a stop with its right indicator flashing.
Caught on police dashcam
The police car kept going and pulled into the hard shoulder, with two officers spotting in their rear-view mirror Nguyen’s car crossing over solid white lines and chevrons back onto the motorway.
As she drove past, she was signalled to pull over.
One officer told the trial there was potential for a “clear high-speed collision” with traffic moving at speeds of up to 70mph.
Both he and his colleague said Nguyen should have instead kept going on the A92 and exited at the next junction and waited for the sat nav to reset itself.
Following the trial, Sheriff Mark O’Hanlon told Nguyen: “It’s fortunate that other drivers, faced with this dangerous hazard, did not strike the rear of your vehicle or other vehicles. That was due to their driving, not yours.
“I am satisfied the driving was dangerous and, accordingly, I find you guilty of the charge”.
Nguyen was convicted of driving the Mercedes dangerously on February 27 by failing to maintain adequate observations, failing to maintain proper control of her vehicle, stopping it when unsafe to do so, and crossing two solid white lines and chevrons whereby other vehicles had to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
Sheriff O’Hanlon banned Nguyen, of Calder Gardens, from driving for 18 months and fined her £400.
‘I know my mistake’
First offender Nguyen was tearful at times during proceedings, particularly at sentencing and afterwards.
Aided by a Vietnamese interpreter in court, she told the trial she has been driving for almost 14 years and got her licence in the UK.
Nguyen, who works in a nail salon in Gorgie Road, said she was trying to follow Google Maps to an address at the time.
She said: “When I found out (it was) the wrong route I tried to swerve to the other lane.
“Google Maps showed me the wrong route. I don’t know what to do, so all of a sudden I don’t know what to do and that’s the reason I just did it”.
Asked by defence lawyer Aime Allan why she did not just follow the road and let the sat nav reroute itself, Nguyen said: “I am truly sorry. I know my mistake and won’t do it again”.
Nguyen added: “I don’t think it (the manoeuvre) is dangerous, it’s just careless”.
She said she waited until there were no cars in the motorway lane before she “swerved” back into it.
Panicked
In her closing speech, Ms Allan suggested that “reading between the lines,” her client has panicked when in the wrong lane and tried to correct it.
The solicitor argued it was careless rather than dangerous and that, from her client’s perspective, she has stopped and indicated in a way to give enough time for those behind her to know what is happening.
Under questioning by prosecutor Azrah Yousaf, Nguyen accepted she should not have turned right onto the motorway and crossed chevrons, that a number of cars had to brake, and she should have continued on the slip road until her sat nav reconfigured itself.
Ms Yousaf suggested Nguyen had carried out the manoeuvre to save time and that it could have caused a “pile up of cars” if other drivers had not been paying attention to her that day.
In her closing argument, the fiscal described it as “extremely dangerous”.
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