A teenager has been left scared to get back behind the wheel after being injured in a hit-and-run incident on the Tay Road Bridge.
Rebecca Hutcheon, 18, was driving from her native Cupar to visit her sister, Samantha, in Dundee, when a vehicle pulling a trailer swerved into her lane, smashing into the side of her Fiat 500.
The retail assistant, who has been driving for only four months, suffered whiplash injuries and is unsure if the driver who sped off afterwards can be traced.
Rebecca, who plans to study children and young people’s nursing in Aberdeen next term, said: “I was travelling into Dundee on the bridge, and there were two large vehicles – I think they were lorries, basically – and in between them was this guy with a trailer on the back of his car.
© DC Thomson
“I moved out into the fast lane when I saw the first lorry closest to me, and as I was in line with the back of the car – right in line with his trailer – he just pulled out into the fast lane and hit the front of my car – from the the wheel trims, all the way back to the middle of my passenger door.
“The trailer smacked me, at the passenger side.”
Rebecca said as shaken as she was, she was thankful no one was in the passenger seat, otherwise serious injury could have occurred.
“I was still moving, it was when he hit me I beeped my horn and was flashing at him, expecting him to stop,” she said.
“But, he just put his foot down and kept going. So, I didn’t even catch his registration because a car pulled in front, in between us both, because I couldn’t go any faster than the limit.
“When I got to the traffic lights, he was gone.
“I saw the way he went – towards the Kingsway roundabout – but I lost him after that.”
When asked how she was feeling afterwards, Rebecca, who works at H&M in St Andrews, said: “Not the best, no. I was really shaken up because I’ve only been driving for just about four months.
“I was taken to Ninewells by my sister, Samantha, and given painkillers for my whiplash, all down my left side.
“It’s kind of knocked me back a wee bit, like with not wanting to get back out into the car.
“Because there wasn’t very much I could do and I couldn’t stop or move anywhere on the bridge, it was horrible, like a trapped feeling.
© DC Thomson
“I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do in that situation.”
Rebecca said police and her insurance company were “holding off” while officers try and source camera footage of the incident, to identify the other vehicle. There are a number of cameras on the Tay Road Bridge and at the exit at the Dundee side.
“It kind of puts me in a more difficult position to get it sorted out, because the police are going to have to do more work to figure out who it was, instead of me just giving them the number plate,” she explained.
“We are hoping that they will look at the cameras and check, because it should be on there.”
A spokesman for the Tay Road Bridge confirmed Rebecca had been in touch about the incident, and would assist police with any investigation, but had not been contacted by officers as of yet.
Police Scotland has been approached for comment.
