A dangerous driver crashed into traffic lights on the A9 and then failed to provide a sample for police, Inverness Sheriff Court has heard.
Kayleigh MacLeod, 36, failed to slow as she entered the 50mph zone heading north towards the Longman roundabout.
MacLeod’s Volkswagen collided with traffic lights before coming to rest on the roundabout.
MacLeod appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit a charge of dangerous driving, as well as failing to provide a blood sample to police following the incident.
Dangerous driver was travelling ‘at speed’
Fiscal depute Shamiela Ghafar told the court it was 8.10am on September 24 last year when a witness on the A9 northbound at Longman noted MacLeod’s blue VW passing into the 50mph zone “at speed”.
She said “The witness observed the vehicle approaching at speed. She braced herself thinking the car was about to collide with her vehicle.”
Ms Ghafar said that instead, MacLeod’s car collided with the traffic lights and then came to a halt on top of the roundabout.
“The traffic light system was strewn across the road surface,” she said.
In the immediate aftermath witnesses heard MacLeod exclaim: “I have crashed my car.”
Police were called to the scene and MacLeod identified herself as the driver.
She was taken to Raigmore Hospital, having suffered a broken nose and “nasty” leg injury, and failed to provide a sample of blood to police.
Solicitor Marc Dickson told the court his client, who has difficulties with her mental health, had been in a relationship with a man living north of Inverness at the time.
He said: “She had found out certain information and had decided to travel north of Inverness to try and meet with him.”
A9 crash driver not in ‘good frame of mind’
Mr Dickson added: “She accepts she wasn’t in a good frame of mind to make the journey and accepts her driving fell below the standard required.
“She doesn’t have much of a recollection of events at all.”
Sheriff Gary Aitken commented that MacLeod was “lucky” that the consequences had not been more serious.
He fined MacLeod, of Wade Circle, Inverness, £640.
The sheriff also banned her from the roads for a year, after which she will have to sit and pass the extended driving test.