Truck driver admits tipper charge

The incident resulted in the road being closed

A trucker has admitted causing the tipper of his lorry to smash into a motorway's overhead gantry, triggering traffic chaos across central Scotland.

Stuart Templeton, 25, from Denny, pled guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court to carelessly driving his truck on 22 February last year.

The incident happened on the Glasgow to Stirling M80 at the Bankhead Interchange.

Templeton was fined £300 and given five penalty points on his licence.

The court heard how the rear of the tipper truck became wedged under the gantry, which spans all three lanes of the northbound carriageway.

He went onto the motorway with the tipper section still upright and it struck an overhead gantry Fiona Dourish Fiscal depute

Fiscal depute Fiona Dourish described how Templeton had just driven the lorry from his works yard when the accident happened at 0130 GMT.

She said: "He went onto the motorway with the tipper section still upright and it struck an overhead gantry."

The oversight caused £150 worth of damage to the gantry.

Ken Dalling, defending, described his client as an experienced tipper truck driver.

He said Templeton had dropped his load and raised the tipper section before entering the motorway.

He said: "There should have been a 'tell-tale' on the dashboard but it wasn't working.

The elderly driver of the Corsa escaped injury

"And, when an examiner looked at the dashboard, he noticed that the 'tell-tale' was inoperative.

"Mr Templeton was driving a very short distance on the motorway - about half a mile - at a very low speed."

Mr Dalling said the trucker accepted the blame for the accident but he stressed: "It is not at the highest scale of culpability."

Thousands of motorists were stuck in five-mile tailbacks at both the morning and evening rush hours after the freak accident.

The lorry driver and the elderly male driver of a Vauxhall Corsa, which struck the back of the truck, escaped injury.

The truck was only removed after cranes were brought in to unpin it from the gantry.

At the time, Central Scotland Police said the accident happened when the road was quiet but because of the danger they had no choice but to close the northbound section.