Coroner brands A1 the weakest link after inquest
Nov 26 2009 by David Black, The Journal
FRESH fears were voiced yesterday over the perils facing motorists on the A1 in Northumberland following a head-on smash which claimed the lives of two drivers.
North Northumberland coroner Tony Brown said the A1 from Morpeth to Berwick was the “weakest link” in the road between London and Edinburgh because of its dangerous mixture of single and dual carriageway sections.
He predicted there will be more preventable deaths in the future unless the road is given a higher priority for upgrading and dualling.
Mr Brown was speaking at an inquest on drivers Ian Thompson, 51, and David Clarkson, 42, who were killed when their vehicles collided head-on on the single carriageway section of the A1 Felton bypass in February.
Mr Thompson, of Merton Cottages, Embleton, Northumberland, was driving his Nissan van south when Mr Clarkson, who was travelling north from London to Edinburgh, pulled out of a line of traffic and into the southbound carriageway.
Mr Thompson, a married man whose job involved cutting away trees from power lines, had no chance of avoiding the collision and was killed instantly in the 7am smash. Mr Clarkson, from Croydon, died later that day in hospital.
Yesterday’s hearing in Berwick was told there was no apparent reason for Mr Clarkson suddenly indicating and pulling out right in front of Mr Thompson’s oncoming vehicle. Mr Brown said it was the second inquest he had conducted recently in which a local man driving to work on the A1 in Northumberland at normal speed and on the correct side of the road had his life abruptly ended in a horrific collision.
The other involved Amble fisherman Alan Gair, 37, who died in October last year when his car was in collision with a lorry on a single carriageway stretch of the A1 at Mousen Bends near Belford.
