Crash driver was travelling at more than 90mph (From Bucks Free Press)

Crash driver was travelling at more than 90mph

7:20am Thursday 6th December 2007 in

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A DRIVER who was killed when his car came off the A40 and ploughed into a tree was travelling at more than 90mph, an inquest has heard.

Gerard Hyland, 43, was driving from Beaconsfield towards High Wycombe on July 30 this year when he crashed his Mercedes E320 into the tree on a bend near the Wyevale garden centre.

The speedometer on the car froze when the electrics in the car cut out on impact, and the needle was between 95 and 96mph.

A post-mortem exam found that Mr Hyland, who lived in Cookham Dean, had two and a half times the legal amount of alcohol in his blood at the time of the crash.

Witness Lucy O'Shea told the inquest at Amersham Coroner's Court yesterday afternoon that she had seen the silver Mercedes approaching the roundabout at the junction of Wycombe End and Aylesbury End in Beaconsfield before the crash.

She said: "I saw the Mercedes come onto the roundabout without looking. It ended up on the roundabout. He got onto the straight and just floored it. I've never seen a car go so fast."

Miss O'Shea and her partner Dean Grant followed the car along the A40 to write down its registration number but lost sight of it. They saw a cloud of dust and turned into the garden centre entrance, and when they turned back out onto the A40 they saw the Mercedes had crashed.

PC Andrew Evans from Thames Valley Police told the inquest that Mr Hyland may have clipped a traffic island and lost control of the car.

The tree was embedded in the centre of the car and Mr Hyland suffered multiple injuries. Coroner Richard Hulett recorded a verdict of accidental death.