A young motorist escaped serious injury yesterday after his car careered into a north-east garden and overturned.
The 19-year-old, whose name was only given as Daniel, was travelling to work on the A952 Mintlaw to Toll of Birness road when he was involved in a collision with a van.
The teenager’s silver Ford Fiesta then crashed through the garden of Cortes Kennels and coming to rest inches from the front room of mother and daughter Deanna and Nicole Wharton.
Remarkably the driver was able to crawl out from under the mangled chassis of his car with relatively minor injuries.
Ms Wharton jun said: “It was around 5am this morning and there was a loud bang. I first thought the cats had knocked the wardrobe over, but there was a man standing shouting in the road.
“The car was resting against the living room window. It’s a miracle it don’t go through the glass and a miracle he wasn’t more hurt.
“The car was just lying in the garden like some bizarre ornament.”
Worried the young driver was in shock, Ms Wharton and her mother gave him tea and chocolate biscuits left over from Christmas.
Daniel’s parents later took him to hospital to be examined by a doctor.
Ms Wharton jun said more needed to be done to make the road outside her home safe.
“We’ve lived here 30 years and this is the third crash like this,” she said. “The first hit the garden wall, the second came through the wall and today it hit the house.
“I think I’ll ask the council to do something about putting up a sign. Or maybe I should put up a toll gate.”
Last night a police spokeswoman said: “We were informed of a collision on the Lonmay stretch of the A952 at 5.13am. A vehicle appeared to have crashed and landed on its roof in a garden.
“There were no reported injuries. and the road was not blocked.”
Responding to criticism of the A952 safety measures, an Aberdeenshire Council spokesman said there was nothing the local authority could have done to prevent the accidents at Cortes Kennel, and that it was the responsibility of drivers to be aware of road conditions.