This is an old post. But it is still absolutely true.
In a long-overdue update – I didn’t follow the story at the time, but it was visited by a search in 2022 – Tennant was unbelievably cleared of causing his girlfriend’s death!
This story from Edinburgh illustrates clearly the absolute Number One reason many young drivers have accidents, which are often fatal.
Euan Tennant was a learner driver. He had taken “around ten” driving lessons, but never passed his test. He then went out and bought a two-litre sports car.
It was a calculated decision on his part to do this. It wasn’t like he forgot to pass his test. That he overlooked it. He knew full well what he was doing.
He had driven around 1,500 miles in the car with his 22-year old girlfriend as his supervising driver (allegedly – we must assume that she had passed her test more than 3 years previously, and that Tennant was always accompanied when he went out). He reckons she’d never told him to slow down in all that time. This version of the story says that Tennant had only owned the car “for a few weeks”, so he did well to rack up 1,500 miles in such a short time – it can take me 2-3 weeks to do that, and I’m a very heavy user!
On this one trip, Tennant lost control on a bend (the old story), Laura Campbell had to be cut from the wreckage and died a few hours later in hospital.
CCTV footage shows a speeding car, which Tennant admitted “could have been him”. He also admits overtaking another car shortly before the accident. He claims he was not speeding on the bend and that there was “something on the road surface” that made him lose control.
Just for the record, if you’re driving at a safe speed on a bend, you do not lose control and have to have your passengers cut out of the mangled wreck – even if the road does have “something on it”.
The police could find nothing on the road surface, and believe that excessive speed was the cause.
Tennant claims to have been doing 40-45mph when he lost control.
The case is ongoing, but the fact that a juvenile mind is prepared to behave in such a juvenile way – with such appalling results – is precisely why young people have accidents. It isn’t their training. It is their attitudes.
Tennant is expressing all sorts of remorse.
The fact is: he made the decision to buy a sports car with sound mind clear conscience, and hopelessly inadequate driving skills knowing he was still a beginner. And now he needs to face the music.
EDIT: And this is why young drivers will continue to have fatal crashes, because there’s no deterrent. Tennant was cleared on the grounds that the case against him was not proven. I take back a lot of what I’ve said about Scottish law making better decisions than the law in England.
I’d just point out that Laura Campbell is still dead. And Tennant was still highly inexperienced, and driving a car hopelessly too fast for his poor driving skills.
Laura’s parents understandably feel “let down” by the verdict.