A seven-year-old girl died when she cycled into a lorry outside her home, an inquest heard, as residents expressed anger over the number of HGVs turning the picturesque Wiltshire village where she lived into the “wild west”.
Eloise Jackson had only recently learned to ride when she fatally collided with the wheels of a moving HGV metres outside her front door on 13 July 2021, a coroner was told.
Her mother told the hearing that she screamed and ran after her daughter as Eloise pedalled away from her on her BMX bike down the hill and into the vehicle, which was loaded with 26 tonnes of plastic powder.
Calls to ban articulated lorries from the roads surrounding the village of Collingbourne Ducis have escalated after her death, with residents and the local MP calling for immediate action, and a petition calling for lorry rerouting and a new speed limit.
Philip Palmer, a family friend representing the Jackson family at the inquest, said the increasing volume of HGV traffic was “totally inappropriate” for the types of roads in the area. “The largest vehicle anticipated when these roads were made was a big horse and cart, not these six-axle HGVs,” he said.
The area of road where Eloise died was an “accident blackspot” where there had been other collisions, including a death after a two-car crash in December 2020, he added.
The road on which they lived, Church Street, is part of the A338, which links the A303 with Swindon via Marlborough.
The inquest heard that Laura Jackson had been walking alongside her daughter as she cycled back from a local recreation ground near the home they shared with Eloise’s father, James, a shipping clerk, and elder sister Anaiis, 11.
In a statement, Jackson said that her despite telling Eloise not to cycle ahead, her daughter pedalled off down the hill. “I was yelling and screaming. I went to the end of the road and came face to face with a lady who said ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’” she said. “All the traffic stopped and I started screaming for someone to call an ambulance.”
Eloise had massive contusions to her left side, extensive traumatic injuries and significant abdominal bruising, and she was pronounced dead at Salisbury district hospital later that evening, the inquest heard.
PC Stephen Fair, a police collision investigator, said it was a “tragic collision”, with the lorry travelling at no more than 12mph.
The lorry driver, Rodney Motonga, who was not at fault, said in a statement: “I to this day do not know how the collision happened.”
Concluding the brief hearing, the area coroner, Ian Singleton, said Eloise died as the result of a road traffic collision.
Collingbournes Road Safety Working Group is a campaign working to reduce speed and the number of HGVs using the A338 through Collingbourne Ducis and Collingbourne Kingston.
It is supported by Eloise’s Army, a project set up by Laura Jackson to raise funds, campaign, and honour Eloise’s memory. Danny Kruger, the MP for Devizes, has offered his support to the campaign and asked the government to ban HGVs from using the A338.
Describing the volume of traffic in the area, Palmer said: “I spent 28 years with the Met police in London. If we had a stretch of road like this, somebody would have been taking notice of that. “But down here, it’s like the wild west.”
