See what happened when a lorry driver opened a text message on his phone

A lorry driver is currently facing charges after he opened a text message seconds before he veered into oncoming traffic and caused a crash which killed a police officer.

According to UK Daily, Danny Warby, 28, was driving the 13.6-tonne white DAF lorry along the A141 in Cambridgeshire when he opened a text message on his iPhone at about 4.30pm, Helen Guest, prosecuting said.

Peterborough Crown Court heard his vehicle crossed the white line in the centre of the road and clipped an oncoming lorry, showering two cars in debris, before crashing into a Renault Clio which was also in the oncoming line of traffic. 

The Clio was driven by Cambridgeshire police officer Sharon Garrett, a married mother-of-two who was on her way home from work. 

She was pronounced dead at the scene on June 6, 2014. Warby denies a single count of causing death by dangerous driving.

Ms Guest said: 'Mrs Garrett, in the short time available to her, had started to take evasive action towards the grass verge as the lorry headed towards her, but she was unable to prevent a collision.

'Both vehicles landed on their sides in a ditch at the side of the road.'

Ms Guest said Warby, of King's Lynn, Norfolk, had opened a text message little more than a minute before the crash.

She said he had no hands-free kit for the phone in the lorry.

'It's possible he didn't read the text immediately, just opened it,' she said.

'After all, after [he drove past] the safety camera there was a bend and you have to steer round bends and in the meantime after opening the text, where was the phone?

'What was he doing with his hands, what was he thinking?

'The collision took place on a fairly straight stretch of the road, that's the irony.

'After all the bends and junctions and the more dangerous manoeuvres, this accident happened on a relatively straight stretch of road, when, if a person might be that way inclined, it might present an opportunity to read a text.'

She added: 'If you're interacting with a mobile phone, your eyes aren't on the road and your two hands aren't on the steering wheel.'

The fatal crash happened close to RAF Wyton, near Huntingdon, the jury heard.

Warby had completed several short journeys that day in the lorry which was carrying a crane and construction materials.

The final fatal journey was less than one-and-a-half miles from a layby where Warby had parked for more than an hour, the court heard.

'That journey is going to be under the microscope during the course of this trial,' Ms Guest said.

She said conditions were good, vehicle defects were not a factor and Warby's lorry was travelling at 53mph on a stretch of single carriageway restricted to 40mph for heavy and lights goods vehicles.

He performed an emergency brake after the collision with the offside of the oncoming lorry, causing his vehicle to arc into the path of the blue Renault Clio.

Ms Guest said Warby had been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnoea late last year and his defence lawyers would argue that he experienced a micro-sleep just before the crash.

The prosecution case is that Warby's reaction to apply the brakes after the first collision was 'rapid', and not consistent with a person who had been asleep, Ms Guest added.

[UK Daily]