Bad brakes caused Cornish crash
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• At the inquest at St Austell, Cornwall, on five victims of a road accident when an articulated lorry driven by George Featonby Johnson, 60, of Chestnut Avenue, Peterborough, ran down a hill and crashed into other vehicles, killing the driver and four other people, a DoE vehicle examiner said that there were such serious defects in the lorry braking system that the driver must have known of them.
He told the coroner that the tractive unit brakes were very bad and on the semi-trailer the brakes on two wheels did not operate at all. On the tractor-trailer combination six of the eight brake actuators were in serious need of adjustment; one having been incorrectly assembled after repair, preventing a full braking stroke being reached; another was just within the limits of re-adjustment. None of the faults could have been caused by the accident. Overall maintenance of the vehicle was very good and it was not overloaded. Johnson was driving the vehicle for R. Perkins and Sons, of Maxey, near Peterborough, and there was nothing found in his physical condition to account for the accident.
According to evidence at the inquest, the vehicle was travelling at an unusually slow speed for several miles to the top of Pentillick Hill, and the driver waved on several vehicles. In the crash the lorry ran into these vehicles as they were stationary at some temporary traffic lights at the bottom on the hill.
A verdict of "death by misadventure" was recorded in respect of all five victims and the jury suggested this hill, with a gradient of 1 in 10, should have an escape road part of the way down and that there should be signs warning lorry drivers to drive in low gear.