TWO motorists have told how they willed a veteran rambler not to continue with his "fatal'' decision to cross a busy road.

Van driver Ian Halliday was travelling behind the red Ford Escort which hit 72-year-old Arthur Firth who had appeared to hesitate as he reached the middle of the A171 Guisborough to Whitby Road near Moorsholm village, in North Yorkshire, only to sprint across the other lane.

He told an inquest in Middlesbrough: "It didn't look as though he was going to get across. I braked and slowed right down. I just had it in my head: 'Stop! Stop! Stop! Don't do it!' But he kept going.''

Lesley Shepherd, from Marske, was driving a camper van coming the other way. She said: "I saw this gentleman crossing the road and my initial reaction was: 'Don't do it!'''

Deputy Teesside coroner Gordon Hetherington said: "He got to the centre of the road, appears to have hesitated, possibly because he realised there was traffic coming from the other direction. He then appears to have made the fatal decision that there was enough time to get across the side of the road."

He said of Escort driver, Mr John Henry Hammond, of Hunmanby, Whitby: "All the evidence seems to suggest that the driver would have very little chance of avoiding him.''

Mr Hammond had been travelling within the speed limit.

Mr Firth who lived in Moor Close, Moorsholm, with his retired librarian and magistrate wife, Joan, was a veteran member of Stockton Ramblers and had on the day he was killed - July 16, 2000 - led a walk from Scaling Dam to Runswick Bay.

He was trying to cross the road after being dropped off by a coach, returning with the walkers, when tragedy struck.

A verdict of accidental death was recorded.