Crash victim speaks out after driver is fined (From York Press)

B1363 crash victim speaks out after driver Tara Robinson is fined

9:33am Monday 10th September 2012 in News By Dan Bean, dan.bean@thepress.co.uk

A YORK woman has told The Press of the moment she thought she was “going to die”, after a careless driver caused an accident on a North Yorkshire road.

Tara Michelle Robinson, of Main Street, Stillington, was found guilty by magistrates of driving without due care and attention following a crash last November, which seriously injured three people.

The court heard Robinson, 21, left the scene of the crash, at the B1363 near Sutton-on-the-Forest, and had to be forced to return to the incident by another motorist who had witnessed her “erratic” driving.

Katie Turner, 24, was driving in the opposite direction, when she saw Robinson’s vehicle straddling the central line of the road while travelling at between 50 and 60mph on November 20 last year.

Katie said: “I braked to avoid hitting her, and hit a ditch in a verge, lost control and came back into the road. My car scraped the side of an Astra van coming towards me, then spun 360 degrees and ended up on the other side of the road in a lane of oncoming traffic, at which point I was hit head-on by a Volkswagen Polo which had come round a blind corner.

“When I came to a stop it was a split second before I was hit again and I knew I had to get out of the car. Then when I got hit again, I thought I was going to die.”

Katie, who suffered a fractured sternum, fractured ribs, and a punctured right lung in the crash, spent two weeks in York Hospital where she had to have two lung drains after her lung collapsed.

She said she did not realise she was injured after the initial crash, and was still affected by the incident, but praised the actions of motorist Paul Midgely, who overtook Robinson and brought her back to the scene until police arrived.

Katie said: “I’m driving again now, but I’m much more anxious and nervous. I don’t like being in the car by myself.”

Robinson was disqualified from driving until she retakes her driving test, and was fined £440, ordered to pay prosecution costs of £500 and a victim surcharge of £15.

Traffic Constable Lee Cobb, of North Yorkshire Police, said: “Throughout the investigation Tara Robinson denied any responsibility for causing the collision. The punishment handed down by the court clearly shows that they did not believe her version of events.”