A CORONER is calling for crossing points on the A19 to be closed, after a former teacher was killed when a van veered from the opposite carriageway and into her path.

Sonia Rose, 83, from Carlton Miniott, near Thirsk, died on the A19 near Northallerton on September 30 last year.

The Northern Echo:

Sonia Rose, 83, from Carlton Miniott near Thirsk, died on the A19 near Northallerton on September 30 last year

Ms Rose, a former teacher at Fulford School in York, had been travelling to meet her walking group in Great Ayton.

She died at the scene of multiple injuries.

Her family are now calling for safety measures to be introduced on the A19 between Dishforth and the Tyne Tunnel, which has seen a multitude of serious and fatal accidents over the years.

Her daughter, Katy Rose, said: “It seems now that if a barrier had been in place at this long gap on the dual carriageway then our lovely mum would be alive today. It has affected all our lives very deeply and I am angry.”

She added: “We are particularly angry for the people of the North-East and North Yorkshire who are forced to use this death-trap of a main road every day of their lives.”

An inquest at County Hall in Northallerton today heard the box van was being driven south from Newcastle to Tamworth near Birmingham.

The driver had been travelling in convoy with another van to deliver wines for a company when he blacked out near the Cleveland Tontine.

He said as he regained consciousness he saw he was travelling at speed towards some trees. He was unaware where he was and turned away to avoid them and into the path of oncoming traffic.

The driver said he had sought numerous medical tests to establish the cause of his black out that day and eventually found he had severe sleep apnoea, which had not previously been diagnosed.

One driver who witnessed the accident, Dale Owens, from Sunderland, had been travelling south on the A19. He pulled into an outside lane to overtake the van, when it shot across the road in front of him near the junctions for the Cleveland Tontine and East Harsley.

He said: “It just shot across the road went straight across in front of me and through a gap in the crash barrier and out into the northbound carriageway. It tipped on to its offside wheels, bouncing around and went up the grass embankment at the other side.”

The van narrowly missed two HGVs, before driving a short way on the grass verge and then swerving back onto the road behind the two lorries.

Paul Cool, from Thornaby, Teesside, had been driving north in a van delivering chemicals in the slow lane and as he approached the Cleveland Tontine Ms Rose began overtaking him.

“I saw a white van fly across from the Tontine end and come across to the centre. He hit the barrier and bounced violently. It came on the grass verge and started bouncing out.”

He added: “Mrs Rose’s car was overtaking. I saw the box van start to veer so I put my hazards on. I saw Mrs Rose driving past me. I couldn’t sound the horn because that would have caused an accident in itself. She was looking into her left mirror to pull in front of me, but in the meantime the van fish-hooked back onto the road.”

Traffic Constable Stephen Gardner said Mrs Rose had “little or no time to react to avoid a totally unexpected event.”

Coroner Michael Oakley said he was concerned by the multitude of crossing points on that particular stretch of road.

He said: “There’s multitudinous crossover points on this particular piece of road which certainly I used to drive on regularly. Some of these gaps I know people literally take their lives in their hands to get across.”

Mr Oakley said he would be writing to the Department for Transport, calling on them to consider the closure of “many, if not all, the gaps on the road.”

He said he had made a similar recommendations just a year ago to the government after holding an inquest into another death which happened on the same stretch of road.

He concluded the inquest into Mrs Rose’s death with a narrative verdict, saying: “A van travelling south on the A19 crossed the central reservation through a gap which exists into the northbound carriageway and collided head on with the deceased’s car.”

Speaking after the inquest, one of Ms Rose’s four children, Katy Rose, said they were determined for some good to come of her mother’s death by pressing for safety improvements on the road.

She said serious accidents on the road were far too common. She said when they went to their mother’s house after the accident, there was a voicemail message on her phone from her walking group in Great Ayton, telling her not to come as there had been an accident on the A19.

It was the accident she was involved in.

“If that had been me in that accident, she would have been here doing this,” said Katy.

“She always stood up for what she believed in.”

Sonia Rose’s son, John Rose, who was originally from York but now lives in Thirsk, said there were nearly 25 gaps in the crash barrier on the A19 dual carriageway through North Yorkshire and the North-East.

“Our focus now is to make this road safer,” he said.