News / Bans and fines for road traffic offences
TWO DRIVERS were heavily fined and disqualified for not reporting separate road traffic accidents when they appeared before Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday morning.
In three other cases, drivers were fined for speeding offences.
Scalloway man Frasier Thomas Simpson, of 15 Hogalee, was banned for 18 months and fined £1,000 after he admitted to not reporting going off the A971 road at Wormadale in the early hours of 26 July, and then evading police detection.
Police were alerted to the accident by a member of the public but when they arrived at the scene they couldn’t find Simpson. After searching the nearby area they contacted at first Simpson’s family and then his girlfriend who told officers that he was at her address.
By the time police attended he had fled from there, an action that was described by procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie as a “fairly concerted attempt to evade”. He reported at Lerwick police station the following morning.
Mr Mackenzie said the Crown’s position was that Simpson’s decision making had been influenced by his consumption of alcohol.
Defence solicitor Tommy Allan said the thirty year old tugman accepted that his actions had been stupid and that he had made matters worse for himself.
Sheriff Graeme Napier said that because of the suspicion that alcohol had played some part in the accident it had been Simpson’s responsibility to get a blood sample taken by a police officer.
In a similar case, a skilled labourer from Cunningsburgh was fined £700 and also disqualified for 18 months.
Twenty one year old Daniel Smith pled guilty to not reporting an accident on 30 July when his car left the road on the main A970 at Quarff and smashed through a fence.
Again, police was alerted by a member of the public who noticed the car lying in the field.
The procurator fiscal said the police had spent a “significant amount of time” in an attempt to ensure that Smith was safe and well. He eventually turned up at Lerwick police station the following morning, around 10 hours after the accident.
Mr Mackenzie said that in his view this had been a drink related incident.
Sheriff Napier told Smith that it was his obligation to report the accident and that he would be disqualified because there was the suspicion that he might have been over the limit.
Both men were told that they could reduce the period of disqualification by four months if the successfully complete an alcohol rehabilitation course.
In a number of speeding offences, 54-year old auxiliary teacher Alexis Watt, of Roadside, Girlsta, was fined £250 after admitting driving at a speed of 32 mph in a 20mph hour zone outside Tingwall Primary School on 1 September. Her licence was endorsed with six penalty points.
Meanwhile, Yell man Laurence Odie, of Burravoe, was fined £250 for doing 52 mph on the B9076, when only 30mph was allowed. Odie was clocked in the afternoon of 22 August.
The 58 year old had his driving licence endorsed with four penalty points.
Finally, a 26 year old Italian surveyor who currently works in Shetland was fined £60 for speeding at 50mph also on the B9076 on 22 August.
Christian Ferrante, of 5 Morlino, Bernalda was told that had he been the holder of a UK driving licence the case would have been dealt with by way of a fiscal fine.
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