A coroner has called for action after a North Yorkshire crash in which a mother and two of her children died.
The collision happened when the nearside front tyre of a motorhome burst, causing the vehicle to veer off the road and crash into an HGV parked in a lay-by on the A64 between York and Malton.
A family of five were in the motorhome, on their way home to Rotherham from Whitby after a holiday on the Yorkshire coast.
Shirley Ann Hunt, 44, Ellie Louise Hunt, nine, and five-year-old Oscar Lee Hunt all died instantaneously from multiple injuries in the collision, an inquest heard today (Friday).
Mrs Hunt’s husband Craig and their other son Brooklyn, who was six at the time, survived.
The crash happened shortly before 8pm on 24 August 2021, on the westbound carriageway of the A64 near Barton Hill, 100m south-west of the junction with Steelmoor Lane.
The inquest held at Northallerton heard from Alistair Thorpe, the driver of the HGV that was hit by the motorhome.
That day, he had driven the vehicle, a DAF tractor unit pulling a 45ft flatbed trailer, from Sheffield to Sherburn in North Yorkshire to deliver steel.
At about 4.15pm he had pulled into the lay-by on the A64 for his rest break. The trailer was still loaded with steel girders. The vehicle was parked correctly inside the white lines.
In Mr Thorpe’s statement, read by assistant coroner Alison Norton, he said at 7.55pm “I heard a loud bang followed by a collision, and I was thrown forward”.
He went out to see that a motorhome had hit his HGV and was embedded in the rear of his trailer. A man was screaming and going into the wreckage of the crashed vehicle.
Where the crash happened
The motorhome began life as a Leyland DAF 7.5 tonne former BT works van. In a statement, Craig Hunt said it had already been converted to a motorhome when he bought it in February 2020. He made no structural changes, but painted it and refitted the kitchen.
On the day in question, the family decided to drive home from Whitby after spending just over a week with friends on holiday around the Yorkshire coast.
After about an hour on the road, “I suddenly heard an almighty boom like an explosion” Mr Hunt said. “I felt the front tyre blow and the steering wheel locked.”
Mr Hunt braked hard and tried to turn the steering wheel but he couldn’t, then he lost consciousness.
When he came round his foot was trapped. He managed to extricate himself “all the time feeling extremely distressed and sick with worry”. He tried to rescue his family but couldn’t.
The emergency services arrived. Firefighters cut a hole in the motorhome to extricate the casualties. Paramedics confirmed that Mrs Hunt, Ellie and Oscar had died at 8.08pm. Mr Hunt and Brooklyn were taken to hospital.
Blood tests later confirmed that Mr Hunt was not affected by drink or drugs.
TC Paddy Green, a forensic collisions investigator with North Yorkshire Police, told the inquest that the road surface was good, visibility clear and weather fine and dry at the time of the collision.
He said tyre marks and scratches on the road were distinctive of a “sudden tyre deflation”. The motorhome’s cab was crushed rearwards by the force of the collision, and the chassis was bent.
TC Green said there were no mechanical faults with the motorhome that could have contributed to the crash. Mr Hunt was driving normally and within the speed limit.
A broken speedometer recorded that the vehicle was travelling at 53mph when it struck the HGV.
On examination of the tyre that burst, TC Green discovered a hole in the tread. While that was not deep enough to cause a puncture it had weakened the structure of the tyre, which eventually caused it to blow.
“It wouldn’t have been possible to know that this defect existed with the naked eye,” he told the inquest.
The motorhome had passed its MOT in January 2021.
Mr Hunt, Brooklyn and Oscar were sitting in the front cab and were all wearing seatbelts.
Although only aged five, Oscar was not in a booster seat. But because he was on the nearside of the vehicle which took the brunt of the impact, TC Green said a booster seat would not have saved him.
Mrs Hunt and Ellie were sitting on a bench in the rear of the vehicle. It was not fitted with seatbelts.
Asked by the coroner whether they would have lived if they had been wearing seatbelts, TC Green said it was very difficult to offer an opinion.
He said in this collision, three of the occupants were restrained, two of whom survived while the third could not have survived his injuries.
“The other two occupants were unrestrained and they didn’t survive. It is well-documented, well-researched and well-reported that wearing a seatbelt saves lives,” TC Green said.
According to the law as it stands, passengers in the rear of motorhomes only have to wear seatbelts if they are already fitted. They were not in this case.
At the end of the inquest Alison Norton, North Yorkshire assistant coroner, raised this as a “point of public safety”.
She said: “I am concerned that adults and children over three years can travel in the rear areas of motorhomes without seatbelts – and that, in doing so, this may create a risk to life.”
Ms Norton is to issue a Prevention of Future Death Report to the Department of Transport “to ask for consideration and action that may reduce this risk”.
In her conclusion, she found that Shirley, Ellie and Oscar Hunt died from multiple injuries caused by a road traffic collision. She offered her sincere condolences to Mr Hunt and the wider family.