Pensioner jailed after two passengers killed when he parked car in a motorway fast lane
A PENSIONER’S decision to park his car in the fast lane of a motorway to ask a road worker for directions cost the lives of two of his passengers, a court heard.
James Davies, 71, was driving his partner Christine Evans, 53, and her friend Barbara Jones, 63, to Birmingham Airport when he became lost. He had been driving on the northbound carriageway of the M42 attempting to reach the airport when at 3am on Jan 5 he lost his way as he came across a diversion. So he parked in the fast lane between junctions 9 and 10 near Kingsbury in the West Midlands, about 10 miles north of the airport, after spotting workers on the opposite carriageway, which was closed for maintenance, and put on his hazard lights.
Three cars swerved to avoid his Vauxhall Meriva but a white Mercedes van ploughed into it, instantly killing Ms Evans, his partner of 12 years, and Ms Jones, a pub landlady.
Gareth Isaac, Ms Jones’s partner, who was also in the car, escaped with minor injuries, as did the van driver. On Tuesday, Davies, of Welshpool, Powys, was jailed for 28 months at Warwick Crown Court after admitting two counts of causing death by dangerous driving. He was banned from driving for 11 years and two months.
Judge Anthony Potter told him: “For reasons that are hard to fathom, having become lost you decided to stop not on the hard shoulder but on the outside carriageway of the motorway.” Simon Davis, prosecuting, said that Jake Ashmore, a Highways Agency worker, watched in horror as Davies climbed over the central reservation to knock on his window.
“Mr Ashmore ushered Mr Davies back towards his car as quickly as he could. He got out of his vehicle and took two to three steps towards the car with the defendant. But within two to three seconds he saw a white van hit the rear of the defendant’s vehicle.” The judge said: “Leaving a stationary vehicle in the fast lane of a motorway is dangerous enough but to leave it with three people inside it, whose lives were in your hands, is even worse.”
Jemma Gordon, defending, said: “Mr Davies finds himself before the court for the first time in his life in the most tragic of circumstances. A momentary decision affects those around us and sometimes they are catastrophic.”