Mansfield driver followed sat-nav 'wrong way' around roundabout
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Angela Foster, aged 39, made the motoring blunder on Ripley’s busy Hartshay roundabout - where the A610 on which she was driving and the A38 meet.
Chesterfield Magistrates Court heard how on November 13, at about 10.40pm, police tried to signal Foster, realising she was about to go ‘the wrong way into the A38’.
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Hide AdAndrew Conboy, prosecuting, said: “She did a three-point turn on the slip road.
“She said she was following her satnav and that’s why she made the manoeuvre she had.”
Foster, of Queensway, Mansfield, admitted dangerous driving.
Maria Moore, mitigating, said: “I cannot tell you how distressed she has been by this”.
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Hide AdMs Moore said her client, who was not familiar with the area, had been out with her mother for the evening on the night of the driving error.
She said Foster had stopped off minutes before the mistake at a nearby McDonald’s.
Ms Moore said: “The sat-nav told her to turn right out of McDonald’s, so she turned right. She corrected it herself.”
Shocked
Ms Moore said her client was ‘genuinely shocked’ when she received paperwork through the post informing her she had been charged with dangerous driving.
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Hide AdShe said her client, who was in tears during the court proceedings, ‘did not hit anyone and no-one was injured’.
The court heard Foster, who had been driving for four years, had a clean driving licence and was a ‘hardworking’ woman who looked after ‘lots of people’.
Sentencing, magistrates told Foster: “We can see exactly how it would have happened. We will step outside of the guidelines and deal with this by way of a financial penalty.
“You have a clean driving licence and are obviously remorseful and have an unblemished record.
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Hide Ad“It was a single incident and it’s had an effect on you already.”
Foster was banned from driving for 12 months, fined £233 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £34 surcharge.