AN ELDERLY motorist died after driving into the path of an oncoming car while trying to cross the busy A64 near Tadcaster, an inquest in York heard.

Alan Williams, 70, from Anglesey, died almost instantly on September 15, last year, from a ruptured aorta after a Ford Escort driven by student Andrew Goodson from Sheffield ploughed into the side of his red Peugeot at almost 70mph.

The inquest heard that Mr Williams apparently pulled into the car park of the Aagrah Indian restaurant after missing a turning.

He then pulled out slowly straight across the road, heading for a gap in the central reservation which would have enabled him to get to the Travel Lodge on the other side of the road where he and his wife Joan were booked in for the night.

Motorist Eileen Stott described how as she came round a slight bend she saw Mr Williams's Peugeot broadside on to her ahead.

She braked and slowed to avoid hitting the car, but then the car driven by Mr Goodson came up in the outside lane and the accident occurred.

Mr Williams's widow, Joan, said in a written statement that the couple had been visiting Harrogate and decided to spend the night at the Travel Lodge.

After missing the turning in the central reservation as they drove west along the road, they saw the gap and her husband turned right.

She said: "I think we had come almost to a complete standstill when the collision occurred."

Mr Goodson, a computer programmer on a student placement with Nestl in York, said in a statement to police he had been doing between 60 and 70mph in the outside lane when he saw Mr Williams's car coming on to the road.

He said: "He was not going very fast at all. I could not stop in time. I put the brakes on. The next thing, I just hit him."

Coroner Donald Coverdale said there was no evidence Mr Goodson had been speeding or that he had delayed taking avoiding action.

He recorded a verdict of accidental death.

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