Farmer died after being hit by motorbike while crossing road
CORONER CONCLUDES THE 84-YEAR-OLD AND THE BIKE RIDER BOTH ‘AIMED FOR THE SAME PART OF THE ROAD TO EVADE A COLLISON’
AN 84-year-old farmer died after a collision with a motorcyclist as he crossed a Nottinghamshire road, an inquest heard.
Sidney Armett, of Osgathorpe, near Loughborough, died from multiple traumatic injuries when he was struck as he crossed the A6006 Rempstone Road, Normanton-on-Soar, on Sunday, September 13, last year.
The driver of the motorcycle, a professional car and motorcycle examiner, of Sileby, was heading along the A50 to East Midlands Airport, and towards home after meeting friends.
Mr Armett, a widower with four daughters, had travelled to the area of the collision to drop off a tractor with a family member.
Arrangements were made for him to be collected from the nearby road by another family member.
Gordon Clow, assistant coroner for Nottinghamshire, told the inquest, held at the Council House in Nottingham’s Old Market Square, Mr Armett must have left the field adjacent to the road through a wide gap in the hedge for farm vehicle access.
His precise movements are not known, but immediately before the collision, he was walking from the opposite side of the road back towards the gap in the hedge.
Mr Clow said: “At the same time, a motorbike was travelling towards where Mr Armett was crossing the road.
“The road is a single carriageway road with one lane running in either direction.
“The motorcyclist was travelling northbound in the left-hand lane. This was the opposite side of the road to the gap in the hedge.”
The motorcyclist had said in his account of what happened that there was a man in the road and “he was relatively close” and “I sounded my horn” and “his head did not move at all”.
The rider went to go around in front of him and sounded his horn again and accelerated to go around him.
“He was still just looking straight forward,” said the motorcyclist.
“I carried on accelerating and I’m thinking ‘this just isn’t working and why have I got it wrong.’”
Another driver said she remembered thinking how carefully he was driving as he overtook her and went around a corner where the accident happened.
She told the inquest: “It looked to me as though he (the motorcyclist) was going to sort of go round him the left way really.
“What then happened, the motorcyclist went to go round the right side to get a clear passage past him, but Mr Armett quickened up and that’s when they both collided.”
Mr Clow recorded a conclusion of death by road traffic collision.
He said: “Mr Armett was hard of hearing but had the benefit of hearing aids.
“These were in place and observed to be functioning shortly before the incident.
“It may be that Mr Armett did not hear the approaching vehicles but it is more likely, in my finding, that he did hear and thought that hurrying across to the far side was the best course of action.
“Without looking, Mr Armett would not have known that the motorcyclist had, at or around the same time, also made a decision to move towards the right-hand side of the road, and Mr Armett may well have assumed that the approaching vehicle would stay in the left-hand lane.
“This unfortunate combination of Mr Armett and the motorcyclist evading a collision by aiming for the same part of the road is what led to the collision occurring.”