Woman died on A34 after damaged tyre blew out

Ami-Jayne Steele-Childe, 41, was driving her husband's red Jaguar XKR on the A34 northbound near the South Hinksey slip road, when an under-inflated tyre suffered a "catastrophic blowout", overturning the car.

Oxford Coroner's Court heard yesterday that Mrs Steele-Childe's husband, Matthew, was driving in front of her at the time and saw, in his rear-view mirror, the car flip over and hit a pole. 

READ MORE: Woman died in crash on A34

The couple, from Chatham in Kent, were driving to Coventry to stay with a friend for a couple of days but had separate work commitments so travelled in different cars. 

Picture showing emergency services at the scene of the crash. Pic by Trish Greenwood

Investigating officer DC Robert Jones said a lorry driver saw the Jaguar prior to the incident, shortly after 10am on January 26 this year, and could smell smoke.

He said: "The HGV driver was in lane one and the Jaguar did a normal overtake. He said he could smell smoke.

"From the footage on his dash camera, you could see there was smoke around the tyre. As he's a professional driver he knew it was the tyre but there was nothing he could have done.

"As she was entering the off slip, the tyre had a catastrophic failure making the vehicle unstable and that in turn made the vehicle flip onto its roof and then it collided with 'environmental furniture'.

READ MORE: Nightmare before Christmas as speeding driver hit family's car head-on

“The pole made an impact on the vehicles roof. The tyre was unusually damaged and it was seized at the time.”

Mr Steele-Childe was able to stop immediately and attend the scene first along with paramedic Ben Cole, of South Central Ambulance Service, who had been driving past at the time.

Emergency services were called at 10.14am and arrived at 10.21am but Mr Cole pronounced her time of death as 11.17am.

A34 looking towards South Hinksey

A post-mortem report said that Mrs Steele-Childe, who was a company stage manager for theatre company Beyond the Curtain, suffered severe trauma to the head, neck and upper body.

Toxicology exams showed she was “slightly” over the legal drink drive limit with 86mg/l in her blood from “shared wine the night before” but police believe this did not contribute to the collision.

Forensic vehicle examiner David Russell said the tyre was “significantly underinflated for a long period of time” and added that the blow out “could have been sudden”.

“The tyre will wear until the heat becomes too much or the thickness of the side wall becomes too slumped causing a failure.”

READ MORE: Cyclist died in collision after van driver was 'blinded by bright sunlight'

Assistant corner Gemma Brannigan concluded the cause of death was “massive trauma caused by a road traffic collision contributed to by tyre failure”.

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Read more from this author

This story was written by Gee Harland, she joined the team in 2022 as a senior multimedia reporter.

Gee covers Wallingford and Didcot.

Get in touch with her by emailing: Gee.harland@newsquest.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @Geeharland

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