News / Kerr didn’t take care
A YOUNG mother was fined £500 and had her driving licence endorsed with nine penalty points after being found guilty of careless driving.
Thirty four year old Szilvia Kerr did not dispute driving on the wrong side of the road for a short while late at night on 26 January and colliding head-on with an oncoming car.
Following an hour-long trial at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday, she was found not guilty of a charge of dangerous driving but was convicted of the lesser charge of careless driving.
The court heard that the heavily pregnant Kerr, of North Lodge, Gulberwick, had left her home and driven north on the A970 to have a better view of the northern lights.
After having spent about 15 minutes taking photos while in a lay-by off the main road just north of Girlsta, she turned the car around to head home.
Not realising she had ended up on the wrong side of the road she was heading south for a few seconds before colliding with an oncoming car.
As a result of the accident she was rushed to hospital where she gave birth to a boy.
Kerr, who is originally from Hungary, told the court she has had a driving licence for 11 years of which she had driven in the UK for three and a half years.
She said everything had happened so quickly she had not had the chance to realise she was on the wrong side of the road.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie argued she had made “quite a drastic mistake” that constituted a case of dangerous driving.
But Sheriff Philip Mann said he was prepared to allow for some reasonable doubt and found her not guilty of dangerous driving.
“I regard this to be at the upper range of careless driving. You should have been more careful and as a result there was a head-on accident that could have been serious,” he said.
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