A pensioner’s careless driving caused a crash that left a motorcyclist with life-threatening injuries, a court has heard.
Robert Macrae admitted failing to maintain an adequate observation before he pulled his into the path of a Suzuki rider on the B9101 at Geddes.
The biker came off his machine and suffered serious injuries, including pelvic fractures.
Macrae, 74, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit a single charge of causing serious injury by careless driving.
Fiscal depute Victoria Silver told the court that the motorcyclist had gone from a ride from his home in Inverness to Aviemore and was heading back along the B9101 at around 8.50pm.
She said at the same time, Macrae was driving a white Vauxhall in the opposite direction on the same road, with a female passenger on board.
She said: “The accused tends to drive quite slowly – due to this there was another vehicle behind him
“He has subsequently decided to pull into the offside driveway of Geddes Lodge”
The court heard that this was on the opposite side of the road.
Ms Silver said the driver of the vehicle following passed Macrae, and as they did so noticed the motorcyclist approaching over the brow of a hill.
“He has then observed, in his rearview mirror, the accused pulling out of the driveway into the path of the motorbike,” Ms Silver told Sheriff Gary Aitken.
Vehicle was ‘sideways’ in the road
The court heard that Macrae’s vehicle was stopped “sideways” in the road, but a concrete pillar could have obstructed the motorcyclist’s view of him emerging from a junction that police described as needing to be negotiated with “great care”.
The fiscal depute described that the motorcyclist had “attempted to take evasive action to avoid colliding with the vehicle” but was “unable to do so”.
As a result of the crash, the rider was separated from his bike and came to rest on the roadway.
A witness in a nearby garden “noted the sound of a motorcycle approaching and heard the crash”.
When they went to check they saw Macrae’s vehicle “sideways across the road” and the motorcyclist “laying in the road not moving”.
A passing doctor stopped to help and paramedics were called, the biker was taken to Raigmore where he was found to have pelvic fractures before being transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Biker suffered life-threatening injuries
His condition was assessed to be “life-threatening” and the court was handed a statement from his surgeon detailing the extent of his injuries.
Solicitor John MacColl, for Macrae, said his client was a 74-year-old single pensioner, with “no previous convictions to speak of” who had been driving for 55 years.
He said Macrae was a “generally slow” driver who had tried to signal the following car to pass him by using his indicator before taking the decision to pull over on the right to allow the vehicle to pass.
Once this was done, Mr MacColl explained Macrae “looked to his left and right, saw that the road was clear then commenced his journey on the road”.
He said his client’s guilty plea had come on the day of the trial because Macrae had believed he had completed the manoeuvre and was in the correct carriageway at the time of the collision.
“Photographs show that Mr Macrae was not quite in his carriageway,” Mr MacColl said adding: “The rear off side of Mr Macrae’s vehicle is within the westbound carriage – he has accepted the advice that his recollection was wrong.”
The defence agent called the crash a “tragic accident” but conceded there was a “level of culpability” for his client.
“His driving fell below the standards for a competent and careful driver – not far below,” he told Sheriff Aitken.
The sheriff fined Macrae, of Boath Terrace, Auldearn, £680 and banned him from the roads for a year.