A 76-year-old driver caused chaos in a supermarket car park after mistakenly pressing his accelerator pedal, sending his Mercedes smashing into parked vehicles and knocking a shopper 10ft in the air.
Eric Tan had been wearing slip-on shoes which may have slid under the pedal as his car shot forward, preventing him from stopping.
A man in his 70s was standing directly in front of his vehicle and was sent flying, suffering spinal injuries and broken ribs.
Tan, a retired former Norfolk and Norwich hospital senior nurse, appeared at Norwich Magistrates’ Court, where he pleaded guilty to a single charge of causing serious injury by careless driving.
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The hearing was told he was on a shopping trip to the Tesco Extra store, on Blue Boar Lane in Sprowston, when the accident happened on September 16 last year.
Sarah Fiddy, prosecuting, said: “Witnesses described the car turning right at quite some speed and hitting the man with such force that it threw him 10ft.
“His engine was heard revving before he lost control hitting bollards before driving into the adjacent parking lane and crashing into other parked cars.”
The victim is expected to make a full recovery.
Tan, a keen gardener and table tennis player of Wroxham Road in Norwich, told police after the crash that he had wrongly pressed the accelerator and that his shoe had become wedged under the pedals, said Ms Fiddy.
Ryan Creek, mitigating, said: “He really doesn’t know why this happened. He is not someone who was driving around the city in a reckless manner, he was going about his everyday business.
“He appears to have mistakenly pressed both pedals and believes he put more pressure on the accelerator causing his car to shoot forward. Unfortunately the complainant was in front of his car at the time.
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“He was also wearing slip-on shoes that may have slid under the pedals as it shot forward, preventing him from stopping.”
Magistrates disqualified him from driving for 12 months and imposed fines and costs totalling £1,125. They decided against ordering that he sit a driving re-test.
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