March 17, 2021 9.18 am This story is over 36 months old

Car driver killed after ignoring sign on A1

A van driver and passenger suffered minor injuries
The location of the fatal crash where Shaun Hanmore sadly died. | Photo: Google Earth

A car driver was killed in a collision after he attempted an unlawful shortcut to get on the northbound carriageway of the A1 near Grantham.

Nigel Chapman reported for The Lincolnite at the inquest hearing of 54-year-old Shaun Edward Hanmore in Lincoln on Tuesday, March 16.

An inquest hearing was told traffic emerging from Toll Bar Road at Marston and wanting to travel north must first join the southbound carriageway.

Footage from CCTV cameras at the Esso Toll Bar service station captured Mr Hanmore’s Audi A6 following a Range Rover to a gap in the central reservation designed for motorists turning right from the northbound carriageway into Toll Bar Road.

A Ford Transit van in lane one of the southbound carriageway collided with the offside of the Audi as it pulled out.

The Range Rover driver was a friend of Mr Hanmore and they were heading to an antique collectors’ fair in Newark having stayed the night at the Olde Barn Hotel.

The hearing in Lincoln on Tuesday heard that the collision was just before 6am on August 13, 2020. The CCTV footage showed around 60 vehicles – mostly lorries – pass the site in the two minutes before the incident.

The van driver said in a written statement: “I was on the inside lane of the southbound carriageway travelling at 60 miles an hour. As I approached the Esso garage, I became aware of a grey Audi stationary at the Toll Bar Road junction.

“It looked as though it wanted to go across both southbound lanes and join the northbound carriageway. It was only after the incident that I realised this manoeuvre wasn’t allowed at this junction.”

He added: “When I got to about ten yards away the Audi started to move into my lane. I immediately hit my brakes hard.”

It was estimated that the van driver had less than two seconds to react. He and his passenger suffered minor injuries.

Mr Hanmore, of Crowborough, East Sussex, suffered multiple injuries and was trapped inside the car.

Police officers gave CPR while Mr Hanmore was still in the vehicle but he was pronounced dead soon after paramedics arrived.

A collision investigator said Mr Hanmore had contravened a keep left sign and, to have completed the manoeuvre, he would have had to negotiate the traffic in six different lanes (two normal lanes and one deceleration lane in each direction).

Lincolnshire assistant coroner Marianne Johnson concluded Mr Hanmore’s death was as a result of a road traffic collision.