Driver in M6 carnage may have 'dozed off'
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• A lorry driver may have "dozed off', causing his artic to swerve across the central reservation of the M6 near Walsall, killing himself and two others.
Three lorries and two cars were involved in the pile-up on the northbound carriageway at J9 on 7 January (CM 15-21 January), an inquest at Aldridge was told.
Derek Buchanan, a lorry driver from Oban, told the inquest that the lorry in front of him travelling south, driven by Joseph Malloy of Manchesterbased Car & Commercial Services, suddenly swerved across the central reservation and on to the northbound carriageway. He said Malloy may have "dozed off'.
Steven Davey, a loader at the World Freight depot near Stafford, said he remembered Malloy grabbing his chest as if in pain the day before the accident. Other loaders agreed Malloy had looked unwell and tired.
But his widow, Vera Malloy, said her husband had had eight hours' sleep the night before the tragedy.
Recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner said: "He may have dozed off, but we will never know for sure."