Driver fined for M6 accident
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• A 47-year-old lorry driver who appeared before Altrincham, Cheshire, magistrates accused of careless driving and who was alleged to have made the mistake which set off' M6 fog disaster last September in which 10 people died, was fined £30 and ordered to pay £59.10 costs. The driver, John Seymour of Marina Avenue, Great Sankey. nr Warrington, pleaded not guilty to the charge and said afterwards that he intended to appeal against the decision.
Mr Clive Woodcock, prosecuting, claimed that Seymour had driven his lorry from a slip road into the path of an articulated truck carrying a load of girders. The crash that followed, Mr Woodcock alleged, was the accident that triggered off the whole of the disaster. Mr Woodcock said Seymour's lorry was at the front of a line of smashed vehicles which stretched for a considerable distance along the motorway. Seymour had not been accused of dangerous driving because his was an isolated case unlike others in which drivers had ploughed into the backs of vehicles in front of them.
Seymour told the court that he had taken the utmost precautions when leaving the slip road. Visibility had only been about 10 yards and he had looked and listened with great care before joining the motorway.
Another lorry driver involved in the accident — which was the worst ever recorded in Cheshire — Peter Bennett, 41, of Hunter's Way, Welwyn Garden City, Herts, was fined £75 and banned from driving for a year after being found guilty of dangerous driving. Four other drivers accused of dangerous driving elected to be tried at Knutsford Crown Court and a charge of dangerous driving against a driver stated to be still in hospital, was ajourned until February 11.