Death of girl, 7 sparks calls for ban on HGVs thundering through village
RESIDENTS of a picturesque village have demanded a ban on HGVs thundering past their homes after the death of a seven-year- old girl in a horrific accident.
Eloise Jackson had only just learned to ride when she cycled into a lorry just yards from her front door – the fifth death on the stretch of A road in three years.
The child’s devastated mother told an inquest how she screamed and ran after her daughter as the schoolgirl pedalled away from her down a hill and into the vehicle.
Calls to ban articulated lorries from using the A338 through Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire, have risen since Eloise died 16 months ago.
The village – with a population of 1,000 – has seen a rise in HGVs crowding its tiny roads, often on their way to warehouses in Swindon to the north, or to Amesbury in the south.
A petition calling for lorries to be rerouted and a new speed limit was launched in the wake of Eloise’s death.
Since 2018 there have been five deaths along the A338 between the village and neighbouring Collingbourne Kingston involving HGVs and other vehicles.
One of the village’s thatched cottages had a near miss in July when a Home Bargains lorry crashed into a nearby ditch in the early hours of the morning.
Philip Palmer, a family friend who represented the Jacksons at the inquest, said the increasing volume of HGV traffic was ‘totally inappropriate’.
He said: ‘The largest vehicle anticipated when these roads were made was a big horse and cart, not these six-axle HGVs.
‘They are thundering through pretty much constantly.’
Laura Jackson told Salisbury coroner’s court that she was walking home with Eloise when the child ‘hopped on her bike despite me telling her not to’.
Mrs Jackson, added in a statement: ‘I was yelling and screaming. I went to the end of the road and came face to face with a lady who said, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”.
‘All the traffic stopped and I started screaming for someone to call an ambulance.’
Keen horserider Eloise crashed into a tyre and a wheel of the lorry. She suffered ‘massive contusions to her left side’ as well as ‘extensive traumatic injuries (and) significant abdominal bruising’, and was later pronounced dead at Salisbury District Hospital.
Lorry driver Rodney Motonga, who was not at fault, said in a statement: ‘I to this day do not know how the collision happened.’ The lorry had been travelling at no more than 12mph.
Concluding Tuesday’s hearing, the area coroner Ian Singleton said that Eloise died as the result of a road traffic collision, noting: ‘She sustained major traumatic injuries.’
‘Screaming for an ambulance’