Banned from driving: the health and safety expert caught shaving while going at 70mph

A health and safety specialist who was caught shaving in his rearview mirror while speeding in rush-hour traffic because he was late for a first aid course, has been banned from driving for six months.

Edward Hutcheson was yesterday convicted of careless driving and fined £300 as well as the ban when he appeared before Perth Sheriff Court.

The 39-year-old professional safety adviser was spotted using an electric shaver and leaning forward to look in his mirror while travelling at 70 mph along the A9 south of Perth last March.

Hutcheson, who had previously worked on accident investigations with the police was spotted driving carelessly, close to a notorious accident blackspot on the busy route north near Auchterader, Perthshire.

The court heard that when stopped and questioned by police, Hutcheson told officers that he had been speeding because he was late getting to a First Aid course.

He also claimed that he had been forced to lean across the inside of his vehicle at an awkward angle so he could see past a dozen mannequins he had stored in the back of his car blocking his view.

Hutcheson, from Blantyre, South Lanarkshire was so busy shaving in his mirror that he failed to notice the police officers who saw him when he sped past their patrol car, which was passing in the opposite direction.

On witnessing Hutcheson's behaviour, the officers immediately turned round and chased him for a mile before they were able to get his attention and force him to stop. The officers told the court that Hutcheson had only one hand on the steering wheel and appeared to be checking if he was "getting a good shave" as he overtook a number of vehicles on the two-lane highway.

Despite pleas that he would lose his job if he lost his licence, Sheriff Michael Fletcher found Hutcheson, who had denied dangerous driving, guilty of the lesser offence of careless driving and banned him from the road. "It is near the top end of careless driving, considering the conditions you were driving in and what was going on," the sheriff said.