Hair-raising dashcam footage captured the moment an Inverness man faced a close call when a Land Rover pulled out in front of him on a busy main road.
Sound technician Kai Logan was travelling on the A98 to Inverness from Mintlaw when he suffered the near miss,
In dashcam footage captured by the 21-year-old between Banff and Mintlaw, a black Land Rover can be seen pulling out from a junction, almost colliding with Mr Logan with just seconds to spare.
The incident forced Mr Logan to slam on the brakes and swerve into the grass verge to avoid hitting the motorist.
Leaving him shaken, Mr Logan said: “If there wasn’t a good reaction it could have been pretty fatal. I was in a bit of shock to be honest, it was over very very quickly.
“I had to pull over and chill out for five minutes. I phoned the other half just to let her know what happened.
“The road was pretty quiet. The guy was just not looking at what he was doing and he apologised.
“It makes you think that things could happen. It’s not you that you have to worry about on the road it’s other folk I suppose – and that was brought to life.
“The only thing that I would say to other folk is don’t scrimp on tyres and brakes because that is what saved me.
“I’d definitely take some details when on the road because when you are in that sort of panic you don’t think.
“I probably should have reported him to the police if I had more time to think about it but I didn’t get his reg or anything.”
Recent accidents on the A98
The near miss comes almost one month after a pensioner was airlifted to hospital following a one-vehicle crash on the same road.
Four fire appliances were also called to an incident on the A98 in early April when a crash between a car and a lorry forced a section of the road to close between Portgordon and Fochabers.
Condition of the A98
Warnings were issued last year of a looming crisis on the roads due to surfaces “rapidly deteriorating”.
However, we reported figures in February which revealed the distance of roads needing repaired has decreased during the last year.
Moray councilors admitted they were “quite surprised” to hear that the condition of the region’s routes had improved despite an impending repairs backlog due to a year of aborted maintenance during the pandemic.