Farmers put on alert after fatal crash (From Hereford Times)

Farmers put on alert after fatal crash

8:00am Thursday 16th October 2008 in News By Paul Broome

FARMERS in Herefordshire have been told to ensure machinery taken on the road complies with legal limits.

The warning comes from county coroner David Halpern following an inquest into the death of a young driver who died while appearing to avoid a wide load on a road near Tenbury last October.

Sarah Edwards, 22, was driving home from work along the A456 at Little Hereford around 7.30pm on October 18 when she clipped a verge and veered across the road into the path of an oncoming tractor.

She died at the scene.

The coroner said Ms Edwards, of Ludlow Road, Clee Hill, may have thought she was going to collide with a seed drill being towed by one of three oncoming tractors returning from a job in Himley.

Mr Halpern said the night time conditions may have meant she did not realise how wide it was until the last minute because the drills were not lit at the sides.

He believed she veered to avoid it and then struggled to straighten up and drove across the carriageway into the second tractor.

The inquest heard how the tractors, owned by Hyde Brothers in Brimfield, had flashing amber lights.

Mary Symonds, a passenger in a car following the fleet, said it was “like a disco”.

Accident investigator PC David Sidley said the width of the tractors’ seed drills was measured at more than three metres, meaning the vehicles required a special permit which they did not have.

He said soil and mud had caused the side panels to increase in size, pushing them over the threshold.

Hyde Brothers boss Nicholas Hyde said the company bought the drills that were marketed as having a ‘working width’ of three metres and so believed they were within the law.

“We bought something we thought correct,” he said.

“Most farmers in Herefordshire probably have drills exactly the same.”

Pathologist Mark Hayes said Ms Edwards died of multiple injuries caused by the collision.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Mr Halpern said he did not know if her death would have been avoided had the seed drills complied with the three-metre rule.

But he urged Herefordshire’s farming communities to check the exact widths of their equipment to reduce the chances of this type of accident in the future.