Tragedy of biker girl and pothole council didn’t fix
A TEENAGER was killed when she ploughed her motorbike into the back of a car that had slowed to avoid a giant pothole – which council officials had ordered to be fixed just hours earlier.
Chelsie Rose, 17, died after she collided with the back of the slow-moving vehicle and was thrown into the path of an oncoming car on a country road ‘covered with potholes’.
An inquest heard how Miss Rose had been driving her motorbike along Boughton Fair Lane, Northampton, on 13 March when the crash happened.
A silver car had stopped to navigate the pothole in the centre of
‘Why was it not repaired sooner?’
the road and Miss Rose smashed into a red Vauxhall Corsa that had been forced to slow down – before being hit by the oncoming car.
Emergency services rushed to the scene but Miss Rose was pronounced dead a short time later.
Miss Rose’s mother, Hazel, asked network manager of Northamptonshire Highways Martin Sockett why the pothole had not been repaired sooner.
He replied: ‘If we had to attend to every pothole that was between 50cm (20in) to 60cm (23in) it would be a tremendous strain.’
Earlier this year, Northamptonshire County Council admitted it was close to bankruptcy and banned all spending apart from the legal minimum – the first local authority to do so for 20 years.
The inquest heard how highway inspectors had even visited the pothole on the day of the crash where they marked it as ‘category one’ and ordered it to be fixed within five days.
The 60cm wide, 6cm (2in) deep hole was later filled in overnight under police orders.
Senior coroner Anne Pember said: ‘I find it sad that had the pothole not been present there would have been no reason for the initial motorists to slow down. Chelsie was riding her motorbike, doing what she loved.’
One of the passengers in the Corsa witnessed the crash, after he saw the silver car indicate and come to a stop.
‘We slowed down to about 5mph and couldn’t see why they had stopped,’ he said.
‘Suddenly I heard a loud bang behind us. I saw something black fly through the air and land in the road. It was almost immediately hit by a white car travelling the other direction,’ he added.
Paying tribute to her daughter, Mrs Rose said: ‘Chelsie the teenager was transforming into Chelsie the beautiful young lady.
‘We will always remember and feel the pain of what might have been. We are so proud of what she had achieved in her short life.’
The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death at the hearing at Northampton County Hall.