Driver crushed by his own artic
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• A driver who failed to put the handbrake on his tractive unit was crushed to death as he hitched up a 40ft trailer on a steep hill.
Christopher Bull suffered "catastrophic" head and chest injuries when the vehicle rolled over him and then dragged him 100m down the A429 at Fossebridge, Glos, an inquest heard, Bull, 39, who drove for Johnson & Boles of Cricklade, broke down with a full load of scrap metal on 21 August. Colleagues brought a replacement tractor and towed the stranded vehicle away.
Coroner Lester Maddrell was baffled why Bull failed to secure the tractor handbrake when the whole weight of the fully laden vehicle was being held in place by the mechanical handbrake of the trailer. "Mr Bull had just simply, by reason of the layout of that mechanical handbrake, to reach under the vehicle to release it and this he did without realising that the whole vehicle would roll down the hill," he concluded, recording a verdict of accidental death.
Police say it was sheer luck that the rig avoided another vehicle and a nearby house before coming to a stop.