Call for brighter artics
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• Shrewsbury coroner Colonel David Crawford-Clarke is calling for improved hazard warning signs to be fitted to the sides of semi-trailers.
His approach to the Department of Transport follows an inquest on 9 February on the driver of a small car which ran into the side of an artic as it was pulling across the road from a layby at night.
An accidental death verdict was recorded on Michael Clark of Somerset Way, Wem, Shropshire, who died instantly in the crash on the A49 at Upper Battlefield on 13 December 1986.
Evidence was given by the lorry driver, John Skyes of Felton Close, Shrewsbury, that at the time of the crash he was trying to drive his truck to a suitable turning point.
Questioned about pulling out of the layby at night, Skyes said he considered this safer than during the day because car lights could be seen from some distance away. In this case, however, after pulling out, he saw the car approach with what seemed to him to be dim lights: it had then hit his semi-trailer.
Accident investigation officer Constable Rod McKinnon told the coroner that the case was the fourth he had dealt with involving vehicles running into artic trailers crossing the road.
He said that motorcycle racing star Mike Hailwood had died in similar circumstances and he believed that there was a case for new laws to make trailers more visible at night.
The coroner said he would be sending details of the case to the Transport Minister with a suggestion for more stringent regulations.