Did father’s f lip f lops cause crash that killed girl, 9?

A CAR crash that killed a nine-year-old girl may have been caused by her father wearing a pair of flip-flops at the wheel.

The family were on their way to band practice when their Toyota auris ploughed into a wall on Saturday.

Emergency services cut the roof off the wreckage to try to rescue the child, who was trapped in the back seat.

But she was pronounced dead at the scene, while her 11-year- old sister and father, 45, were taken to hospital where they remained in a critical condition yesterday.

Officers said they were now examining whether the driver was wearing a pair of flip-flops that were found in the car’s footwell.

a spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: ‘It’s one of a range of other possible lines of enquiry.’ The father was driving his daughters to band practice at 10.50am on Saturday when the car hit a brick wall by a block of flats in altrincham, Manchester.

a passer-by, who joined about ten others trying to help the victims, said: ‘I heard a big bang and ran outside and saw a car had collided with a building. We tried to get the passenger lady out. She was in a lot of pain.

‘We tried to get the driver out but his foot was stuck inside the car and the dashboard had gone into his knees. But the girl at the back was not very good at all. I think she had already died.

‘We called the ambulance straight away and to stabilise the driver because I thought he might have another injury. But he was shouting and screaming because of the pain. I think both of his legs were broken and he also had a head injury... It’s just terrible. It’s a very difficult experience.’

GMP said that because of his serious injuries, the driver has not yet been able to provide a full account of what happened.

It added: ‘The Serious collision Investigation Unit are undertaking a rigorous and comprehensive investigation into the circumstances of the collision.’

It is not illegal to drive wearing flip-flops but the Highway code warns motorists against wearing footwear that prevents them from using the foot controls correctly.

a survey by an insurance firm in 2013 reported a third of motorists drove in flip-flops and one in ten admitted to having had an accident or ‘near miss’ because of footwear slipping off. That year a driver who ploughed into a minibus full of pensioners said he failed to break because he was wearing flip-flops.