Mystery of why pensioner fatally veered into oncoming Land Rover on A337

MYSTERY surrounds the death of a 75-year-old Lymington driver who fatally veered into the path of a Land Rover, an inquest heard.

Witnesses saw Robert Griffith-Jones’ silver Honda Jazz “suddenly drift” across the A337 Romsey Road near Lyndhurst straight towards the Land Rover Discovery coming in the opposite direction.

Michael Sadler, who was driving two cars behind Mr Griffith-Jones, told Winchester Coroners’ Court: “I saw the car drifting as if the driver was not responding to the situation. I did not see the brake lights come on.

“There was nothing the Land Rover could have done to avoid the collision. The driver drifted across the lane as if there had been a medical incident.”

Mr Sadler said he stopped his car and immediately ran to see if he could help Mr Griffith-Jones but found him “barely breathing”, with other people helping him.

He went to check instead on the driver of the Land Rover, Simon Relph, who told him: “I had nowhere to go.”

A post-mortem examination showed that the deceased had no alcohol or drugs in his system and had not suffered a heart attack.

Asked by Mr Griffith-Jones’ family if he could have fallen asleep at the wheel, area coroner Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp said there was no way of knowing that.

Mr Relph said he had been on his way home around 2.30pm on 16th June last year when the accident happened. He was driving at around 40mph when he saw the Honda Jazz, which was about six car lengths away from him, start to veer across into his path.

He said: “He started accelerating towards me. I tried to steer out of the way, but he hit me head on. It all happened in a fraction of a second.”

Both cars were extensively damaged in the accident, with Mr Relph having to climb out of a broken window to escape the wreckage.

Paramedics arrived quickly but Mr Griffith-Jones was certified dead at the scene. The coroner heard that death would have been “instantaneous” from multiple injuries.

Mr Relph suffered a fractured sternum among other wounds. Both drivers were wearing seat belts.

In a statement to the court, Alison Bone, a friend of Mr Griffith-Jones, told how they had met up that day in Romsey to visit the tomb of Florence Nightingale.

She said she did not like to go in her friend’s car as she did not consider him a safe driver.

As they were saying goodbye Mr Griffith-Jones remarked to her that he had not changed his driving seat back to its normal position since it had had a recent service and was quite far back. She said that he had joked about him being “like the Queen” as he said he could hardly see over the steering wheel.

Accident investigator PC Anthony Clifford said there were no defects with either vehicle and road conditions on the day of the crash were good.

Reaching a verdict of accidental death, the coroner said it was good that Mr Relph was driving such a “large and safe vehicle or there may have been more than one fatality”.

She told Mr Griffith-Jones’ family “I don’t think we will ever know why the crash happened.”