An open verdict has been recorded at an inquest into the death of a Dublin woman whose car travelled at 165km/h along a suburban road before crashing into five vehicles.
Dublin District Coroner Clare Keane recorded the verdict in relation to Elizabeth Veitch Smyth (84), whose Kia Nero crashed at Hillside Drive, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, on September 11th, 2024.
Veitch Smyth, of Taney Rise, Dundrum, suffered fatal injuries in the crash and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The inquest heard her vehicle hit a ‘box van’ and then an Audi Q7, a Volkswagen Passat, a Volkswagen ID4 and a BMW 1. The Audi was overturned by the impact of the collision.
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Commercial driver Stephen Noonan said he was driving his van along Hillside Drive when he saw Veitch Smyth’s green-coloured Kia coming towards him at speed.
He said the car was partially on his side of the road and he pulled his vehicle to the left. However, the Kia hit the rear side of his vehicle before travelling on and crashing into the Audi.
The Audi hit an electricity pole and turned upside down in the street after being struck by the Kia, which travelled on, hitting other vehicles, stopping only after it crashed into the back of the parked BMW.
Noonan said he got out of his van and immediately called the emergency services. He said, based on his knowledge of cars, he estimated the Kia was travelling at 160km/h. Garda forensic collision examiners later put the speed of the Kia at 165km/h.
Building worker Rob Miller told the inquest he was sitting in his car taking a break from a nearby site and saw the Kia travelling at “astronomical speed”. He said his Honda was hit by debris but was not struck by the Kia, which he described as “ping-ponging off other cars”.
Garda forensic officers gave evidence that video footage taken from cameras on the front and back of the box van indicated the first collision happened at 10.34am. The Kia then travelled 57.7m in 1.29 seconds before hitting the Audi.
It was, they said, a clear and bright day and there was no deformity in the road surface. They said the video footage showed Veitch Smyth “slumped over the wheel” of her car seconds before the crash.
The Kia was taken for a technical examination by gardaí, which did not uncover any defects in the car’s braking or acceleration systems, the inquest heard.
The coroner said a postmortem established that Veitch Smyth’s died because of “hypovolemic shock due to significant blood loss from an extensive scalp injury, secondary to a road traffic collision”.
However, she said the postmortem showed no evidence of an acute incident which might have preceded the crash. Keane noted this did not mean there was not an acute incident, as some medical episodes may not show up in a postmortem.
She also noted the video footage which showed Veitch Smyth slumped over the wheel of her car before the crash.
She said it was “simply not clear” as to what happened, meaning an open verdict was appropriate.
Expressing her sympathy to the deceased woman’s family, she said they had suffered a “shocking and very devastating loss”.
