AN 80-year-old woman was banned from driving for two years yesterday after steering into the path of a passenger train, which was travelling at more than 90mph.
Heidi Beerensson, a retired social worker from Perth, swerved round a lowered barrier at a level crossing and failed to stop, despite flashing warning lights and the sight of the train approaching.
She was travelling on the B934 to the Perthshire Abandoned Dogs Society, a road she had taken many times before.
The driver of the London-bound GNER train, which had nearly 200 passengers on board, was unable to stop in time to avoid a collision. Beerensson appeared on the line just seconds before impact and the train was only able to slow down to 90mph.
No-one on the train - which was badly damaged by the impact - was seriously injured. Beerensson, who had only just returned to driving after a hip replacement, was taken to hospital. She has now recovered from her injuries.
She was disqualified from driving for two years and fined (pounds) 200 at Perth Sheriff Court.
The court heard how she was paying one of her regular visits to the kennels, adjacent to the crossing at Forteviot, Perthshire, which she had crossed safely many times before.
The barrier was fully lowered, but Beerensson drove her Ford Ka around it and entered the track area. She escaped with minor injuries as her car, which was almost across the line when it was struck, was knocked clear of the tracks.
She admitted driving carelessly on the B934 Dunning to Upper Cairnie road at the Forteviot railway level crossing on December 30 last year. She said she had been blinded and confused by the low sun, and felt lucky to have survived.
Sheriff Andrew McCulloch said the offence was at the highest end of careless driving.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article