An "absent-minded" workman caused a crash on a busy road when a ladder fell off his van.
Vincent Watson hadn't secured the ladder to his Vauxhall Combo when he set off from a friend's house, where he had been helping to fit a kitchen, and travelled along the Coast Road. A court heard that the metal item flew off the roof of the van and caused a collision in the carriageway.
Although nobody was injured in the crash, there was damage caused to the vehicles involved, prosecutors said. Watson, of Wiltshire Gardens, in Wallsend, has now been given three penalty points and fined £150 after he pleaded guilty to using a motor vehicle with danger of injury due to its security of load.
