Mercedes crossed white line, forcing truck onto verge, Cork court heard

A Mercedes forced a truck to take evasive action and pull onto a grass verge as the car overtook another vehicle across a solid white line on a major road in Cork, the district court has heard.

Sergeant Trish O’Sullivan said the driver of the truck recorded the incident on dashcam and made a complaint to gardaí. The court was told the truck was travelling on the N22 Cork-to-Killarney road at Lower Dunisky, Lissarda, Co Cork, on September 9, 2024.

At 11.30pm, the truck driver saw a silver Mercedes car coming towards him from the opposite direction. The car had pulled out to overtake another vehicle, across the central white line, and the truck was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision by going up onto the grass verge.

The driver of the Mercedes was identified as Dariusz Sobol, aged 48, of The Orchard, Macroom, Co Cork.

The court was told Sobol had four previous convictions.

Defence solicitor, Simon Kelly, asked Judge Joanne Carroll to consider reducing the charge of dangerous driving to the lesser charge of careless driving, which does not carry a mandatory disqualification on conviction.

Mr Kelly said the Mercedes belonged to Sobol’s former partner and he needed to keep his licence, as he was a tiler who had to drive a van for work.

Judge Carroll said the incident was at “the very high end” of what could be considered careless driving, and Sobol was getting a careless driving conviction “by the skin of his teeth”.

Sobol was convicted of careless driving, fined €500, and the fine was paid in court.

• This article is funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme