Dad’s horror as bonnet flips up on bypass

A FATHER feared he and his children were about to be killed after his car bonnet flipped open as he sped along the City Bypass.
Scott Brand's damaged car. Picture: contributedScott Brand's damaged car. Picture: contributed
Scott Brand's damaged car. Picture: contributed

Scott Brand, 35, was overtaking another car as he travelled at around 60mph when the bonnet sprang up without warning, cracking the windscreen and blocking his view. Blind to the hazards ahead, the quick-thinking NHS Lothian worker somehow managed to steer the newly bought BMW on to the hard shoulder.

But he believes two of his children, five-year-old Dylan and Demi-Lee, 11, are lucky to be alive and were left terrified by their ordeal.

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Mr Brand, who works at Comely Bank Centre, said: “I could have died, my kids could have died – it was terrifying.

“I couldn’t see anything. I was in the outside lane overtaking a car, doing between 60 and 65mph, when the bonnet sprang open. There was a wobble but I don’t know how I managed not to lose control.

“This could have been fatal. My daughter knew how serious it could have been, and couldn’t believe what happened. The kids were both screaming.”

Using his wing mirrors and side windows, Mr Brand pulled off the risky manoeuvre with his bonnet still raised.

“If there had been another car broken down I could have smashed into it or I could have been rear-ended as I pulled over,” he added.

Mr Brand had just picked his children up from his mother-in-law’s house and was on his way back to his home in Fife when the incident happened.

The car is now at a scrap-yard in West Lothian and will be sold for parts as Mr Brand waits for a £12,000 insurance cheque.

He said: “I don’t know how there wasn’t a big serious accident and how no-one else’s life was endangered.

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“My daughter asked ‘Why did that happen?’. She couldn’t believe it.

“Obviously, I had to pull over and get them out of the car.

“That was my first priority. It was windy and it was raining and they were terrified.”

The incident happened less than two months after a Capital teenager’s first car burst into flames weeks after she bought it.

Georgie Hunter, 19, had been driving her Fiat 500 Pop just hours before she heard the sound of a fire outside her bedroom window and peered out to see her car engulfed in flames.

Emergency services rushed to Georgie’s home in Southhouse in the early hours and took 30 minutes to douse the blaze that was raging on the shell of the car.

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