A MUM watched in horror as her seven-year-old daughter was killed by a lorry after she’d gone for a ride on her new bike.
“Bubbly” schoolgirl Eloise Jackson had only recently learned to ride when she collided with the wheels of a moving HGV metres from her front door, an inquest has heard.
Devastated mum Laura Jackson told the hearing how she had screamed and ran after Eloise as her daughter pedalled down the hill and into the vehicle, which was carrying 26 tonnes of plastic.
Laura said: “Eloise hopped on her bike despite me telling her not to. 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’.
“All the traffic stopped and I started screaming for someone to call an ambulance.”
Eloise died in hospital later that evening.
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The Jackson family had decided to leave Collingbourne Ducis in Wiltshire earlier this year, where they had lived for 14 years and relocate to Devizes – amid growing anger about the number of HGVs in their former picturesque village.
Calls to ban articulated lorries from the quiet roads surrounding the Wiltshire village had escalated following the death of Eloise, with residents and the local MP calling for immediate action.
A petition calling for lorries to be re-routed and a new speed limit introduced to protect the “quintessentially chocolate box” area was launched in the wake of Eloise’s death.
A close family friend, Philip Palmer, who represented the Jacksons at the inquest, said the rise in volume of HGV traffic was “totally inappropriate” for the types of roads in the area.
He said: “The largest vehicle anticipated when these roads were made was a big horse and cart, not these six axle HGVs.”
Mr Palmer added that the stretch of road where Eloise died was an “accident blackspot” which had be the scene of other collision, including a fatality in a two-car crash in December 2020.
The Jacksons and their friend hope the new road safety campaign will be “one of Eloise’s legacies”.
Salisbury coroners’ court heard that on the evening of July 13, 2021, Laura Jackson had been walking alongside Eloise while she pedalled her green BMX, which she had only learned to ride during the Covid pandemic.
The pair were going home from a recreation ground near their home, where Eloise lived with her mother, her father James, a shipping clerk, and her elder sister Anaiis, 11.
The road on which they lived, Church Street, is part of the A338 which links the A303 with Swindon via Marlborough.
Mrs Jackson told the inquest in a statement: “The recreation field was just a two-minute walk away from our house. She was so happy riding on the recreation ground.
“I was always by her side but wanted her to be more independent.”
As they walked home, Mrs Jackson told Eloise to avoid cycling ahead – but she pedalled off down the hill.
Eloise, a keen horse rider, crashed into the side of a HGV which was driving past the junction directly outside their house, the hearing was told.
The court heard medical evidence showing Eloise suffered “massive contusions to her left side” as well as “extensive traumatic injuries [and] significant abdominal bruising”.
She was pronounced dead at Salisbury District Hospital later that evening.
PC Stephen Fair, police collision investigator, said it was a “tragic collision”.
He said: “The HGV started moving forward before the collision. It was not travelling more than 12 miles per hour.
“For an unknown reason [Eloise] did not stop. She collided with the wheel and tyre of the vehicle.”
A statement by lorry driver Rodney Motonga, who was not at fault for the accident, was read out.
In it, Mr Motonga said: “I to this day do not know how the collision happened.”
Area coroner Ian Singleton said Eloise had died as the result of a road traffic collision, noting: “She sustained major traumatic injuries.”
Mr Palmer, who is the parish clerk of neighbouring Collingbourne Kingston, described the area as “picturesque and quaint”.
He said: “We have two main problems – speed and HGV traffic. It’s always been a concern about the volume of traffic but in the last few years, people are more conscious of how many are coming through.”
He added: “They are thundering through pretty much constantly. We’ve had four fatalities. It’s just unacceptable.
“It’s had a big effect on everyone here.”
He added that with a new logistics centre expected to open nearby, the “volume of traffic is only going to get worse”.
Danny Kruger, MP for Devizes, offered his support to the campaign and asked the government to ban HGVs from using the A338.
In a blog post, Mr Kruger said: “There have been enough tragic fatalities on this stretch of road in recent years.
“This is further evidence of the need to control speeding but also to ensure HGVs use different routes between the M4 and the A303.”
One of the village’s historic thatched cottages had a near miss as recently as July when a Home Bargains lorry crashed into a nearby ditch in the early hours of the morning – hospitalising another driver who reportedly swerved to avoid the vehicle.
In a Facebook post this summer following that crash, Mrs Jackson, who had a third daughter, Ottilie, in June, wrote: “The recent incident with the lorry was very triggering for us, especially being so close to the year anniversary of Eloise’ death.
“It just shows that absolutely nothing has changed in a year, lorries still continue to pass though the tiny village.
“The issue was not speed which killed Eloise but many vehicles are speeding through this sleepy village. On this occasion people could have died as a lorry lost control and ploughed into the river Bourne missing a house by inches.
“Other houses have been hit by vehicles along the whole stretch of the A338 and damaged.
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“We leave Collingbourne with a bitter taste in our mouths sadly but want to thank friends that have supported us and showed compassion and continue to think of Eloise and all that we have endured this past year.”
In 2019, 251 people were killed, 1,111 seriously injured and 4,172 slightly injured in road accidents involving HGVs that were reported to the police in Britain, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
