A woman on her way to work at a Coventry car dealership suffered a fractured vertebra, broken ribs and other injuries when a Transit van travelling the wrong way down a slip-road ploughed head-on into her car.
But despite the serious injuries he caused to the woman in the crash on the A45 slip-road at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, in June last year, Transit driver Robert Burbery has escaped being jailed.
Burbery (48) of Yardley Green Road, Bordesley Green, Birmingham, had pleaded guilty to causing serious injury to car dealership sales administrator Carly Wood by dangerous driving.
He was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years by a judge at Warwick Crown Court who also ordered him to do 240 hours of unpaid work and disqualified him for four years.
Prosecutor Ian Windridge said that on the morning of June 29 Miss Wood left her home in north Warwickshire as normal to go to work as a sales administrator with a Coventry car dealership.
Her route took her down the A444 and onto the M6 before taking the Coventry Eastern By-pass to join the A45 London Road dual carriageway.
To reach the car dealership on the opposite side of the A45, Miss Wood had to go up the slip-road off the A45 at Ryton, round an island and onto the opposite carriageway.
But as she headed up the long sweeping slip-road, in the outside of the two lanes to overtake slower traffic, she was suddenly confronted by Burbery’s Transit coming towards her.
Burbery had been driving up the A45 towards Coventry, and at Ryton had left at a much shorter slip-road which then joins the one Miss Wood was on at a t-junction.
Despite clear give way and left turn only signs at the junction, Burbery turned right onto the slip-road against the flow of traffic.
“He was on what he thought was the left side of the road, but which in fact was the fast lane of the slip-road,” said Mr Windridge.
There was a head-on collision between the Transit and Miss Wood’s Toyota Aygo which she could do nothing to avoid.
She was rushed to hospital with severe injuries including a fractured vertebra, fractured ribs, leg and hand injuries, a lacerated spleen, ligament damage and extensive bruising.
She was in hospital for seven days and had to wear a neck brace for 12 weeks, and has been left with scars on her right leg.
Miss Wood says the crash has affected her confidence as a driver and affected her financially because she had only recently moved into her new home and was worried she would not be able to pay the mortgage.
And she commented: “I can’t work out how someone could have mistaken that junction for a right turn. I just hope he understands how that selfish action has affected my life.”
Burbery’s barrister said he deeply regretted what had happened, but that he had simply not noticed the left turn only sign at the junction.
Sentencing Burbery, after reading a pre-sentence report on him, Recorder Michael Burrows QC told him: “You drove the wrong way on a slip-road. This was a very bad case of not seeing what were clear signs.
“But there were no aggravating circumstances, and I take it at face value that you genuinely missed seeing the sign.”
