A teenage driver who wrote off a family car within weeks of ripping up his L-plates is facing a test re-sit.
Callum Fair, of Grampian Gardens, Arbroath, was fined £300 and given six penalty points when he appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court after a rural road crash near the Angus town in May.
Depute fiscal Jill Drummond told the court 18-year-old Fair was driving his mother’s Peugeot 107 on St Vigean’s Brae around 8am when he failed to slow down for a bend at a tricky junction.
A Mitsubishi lorry going in the opposite direction was midway through a turning manoeuvre and Fair hit its nearside with the front of his car, which spun 180 degrees and came to rest on its side.
Fortunately both the accused and the driver of the Mitsubishi escaped serious injury but Fair’s solicitor said the accident had been a “salutary lesson” to the sports and fitness student.
He said the teenager had held his licence for less than two months when the crash happened, and had not been behind the wheel since.
The lawyer added, however, that the accident was not a case of a young driver showing off to his friends but resulted from Fair failing to properly judge the braking distance of a car on wet roads.
Sheriff Pino Di Emidio said: “You appear as a first offender with a clean licence.
“Perhaps a number of lucky chances have prevented there being much worse consequences to this particular incident.”
Young drivers are required to resit their driving test if they receive six points or more within two years of passing.