EXPERT: 6-DEATH LORRY COULD’VE BEEN STOPPED
A BIN lorry that killed six people could have been “comfortably” stopped with the handbrake, an inquiry into the tragedy found.
An expert said yesterday that two refuse workers in the back seats could have reached for the lever when the driver apparently fell unconscious at the wheel.
Binmen Matthew Telford, 46, and Henry Toal, 47, were belted in on a bench behind driver Harry Clarke, 58, when the lorry went out-of-control in Glasgow city centre.
The pair looked on helplessly as the 26-tonne truck ploughed into men, women and children when it veered on to a busy pavement days before Christmas.
Neither Telford nor Toal knew how to drive but the transport official believed it was “within general knowledge” the lever would stop a vehicle.
He said either council worker could have unbuckled themselves and reached for the handbrake through a barrier to halt the lorry, Glasgow Sheriff Court heard.
Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) official Phil Balderstone found he could do the manoeuvre in a test inside the Glasgow council vehicle.
Mr Balderstone. 46, said he was able to apply the lever “comfortably” while standing on the bench behind the driver’s seat without a seat belt on.
He agreed with inquiry chief solicitor Lesley Thomson that a truck passenger would have to be trained in vehicle controls to know how they operated. Toal said it did not occur to him to pull the handbrake and he didn’t think he would have been able to reach it using his foot.
He added that he wasn’t sure what the lever did because he wasn’t trained to operate a truck. Victims Jack Sweeney, 68, his wife Lorraine, 69 and their 18-year-old granddaughter Erin McQuade, all from Dumbarton, lost their lives.
Teacher Stephenie Tait, 29, and tax worker Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, were also killed.
The inquiry continues.