A north driver who swerved about the A9 Inverness to Perth road in his van as he tried to stay awake was banned from driving for a year and fined £300 at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday.
Andrew Scobie, 59, of 6 Station Road, Edderton, Ross-shire, admitted driving dangerously – while unwell and tired as he tried to make a doctor’s appointment – by repeatedly swerving into the face of oncoming vehicles.
The day after the incident on May 30, 2014, Scobie called NHS 24 and arranged a hospital appointment and was diagnosed with sleep apnoea and was advised not to drive for three months.
Fiscal Stella Swan told the court that witnesses saw Scobie driving into the opposite carriageway on two occasions and, at one point, a woman tried to overtake the van on a section of dual carriageway but he swerved and prevented her from doing so.
Police were alerted and they found him in a car park and he told them he had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Scobie had been working as a machine operator for SSE in Perthshire and was driving home to make a doctor’s appointment in Tain at 4.45pm that afternoon.
Defence solicitor Alison Foggo said that Scobie has since been signed off work with his medical condition, adding: “The degree of his fault was being too slow to realise the danger his driving imposed on other drivers on the A9.”