Winchester Coroners’ Court inquest into death of Priory psychiatrist Dr Guy Powell in A326 crash

NEW signs will be installed on a busy Forest road after the death of doctor who was hit by two cars as he crossed.

Psychiatrist Dr Guy Powell, who worked for The Priory in Marchwood, suffered fatal injuries trying to reach a bus stop off the A326 last March, an inquest at Winchester Coroners’ Court heard.

Dr Powell (68) had been suffering with a bad back, for which he had previously undergone surgery, and sometimes walked slowly and with a stick.

Because of this, he was unable to drive and so relied on public transport or colleagues to get to his home in Devizes Road, Salisbury.

The court heard from motorist James Percy, who was travelling on the A326 in his VW Transporter towards Southampton when the collision happened at around 6.50pm on 6th March last year.

He told the court his journey had been “normal” until he neared the Priory, when he saw a “flash” to his right.

He said: “The next thing I knew I’d hit something. I could not process what it was. It all happened in a split second.”

Ellie-Marie Brown, who had been driving in the opposite carriageway in her Suzuki Swift, told the court she felt a “bump” and added: “I was aware I’d hit an object.

“I thought something had fallen from a truck,” she said.

“It never crossed my mind it was a person I hit. It all happened so quickly.”

A post-mortem examination gave Dr Powell’s cause of death as multiple injuries due to a road traffic accident.

Police crash investigator Michael Toy told the court a number of conditions attributed to the “unavoidable” crash, which included the dark evening and lack of street lights.

Dr Powell’s clothing, which included a suit and grey coat, made him less visible, he added.

“They simply could not detect Dr Powell in time,” he concluded.

The court heard both drivers, who were frequent users of the A326, passed roadside drug and alcohol checks. Neither car had any pre-collision defects.

Martin Wiltshire, who works for Hampshire County Council’s highways department, told the hearing there had been seven injury accidents on a 2km stretch of the A326 in five years, but none involved pedestrians.

A fatality had also happened close to the entrance to the Priory in 1999.

The court heard existing signage near to the Priory included ‘Slow’ painted on the road and a sign showing the silhouette of an adult and child holding hands, designed to indicate the possibility of pedestrians.

As a result of Dr Powell’s death, HCC planned to add new signs to raise greater awareness of pedestrians, Mr Wiltshire told the court, which were expected to be installed next month.

Changes introduced to improve road safety in 2009 included a reduction in the speed limit to 40mph and a ‘no right turn’ restriction, banning motorists from crossing the northbound carriageway to turn into the Priory, he added.

The area outside the entrance to the hospital did not qualify for a pedestrian crossing, he explained, as the amount of people using the nearby bus stop was too few.

To meet national criteria for crossings, numbers would need to be eight times higher, he said.

He added while multimillion-pound plans to upgrade the A326 were in the “early stages”, he would feed back to the council Dr Powell’s family’s concerns about the lack of provision for people using the bus stop.

Recording that Dr Powell’s death had been caused by a road traffic collision, coroner Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp said: “Dr Powell was crossing in the dark at a reasonably busy time for traffic and tragically was struck by two vehicles and sustained fatal injuries and died.”

She added she “remained concerned” over the lack of street lights.