A WOMAN ploughed into the back of a recovery truck and killed a mechanic as he worked at the roadside because she slammed her foot on the throttle rather than brake pedal, a Court heard.

Defence expert Peter Foster claimed it was the only thing he could “come up with” to explain why Susan Lowe, 62, failed to stop or dodge the truck after she mounted a grass verge.

Mr Foster admitted he had never encountered an example of “unintended acceleration” in 30 years as a police accident investigator and consultant but said it was more plausible than the prosecution case that she had fallen asleep.

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Terry Booth, 52, was killed in the crash that happened just before midnight on the A31 dual carriageway at Poulner Hill near Ringwood on June 12 last year.

A Peugeot 306 he was trying to restart was shunted into a ditch by Lowe’s Chrysler Voyager which then impaled itself into the back of his recovery truck, which was partly on the inside lane of the dual carriageway. Mr Booth, of Ferndown, who had been standing between the vehicles, died at the scene of multiple injuries.

On the third day of a trial at Southampton Crown Court, Lowe said she behaved “like a rabbit caught in headlamps” and panicked when “bright white lights”

from the truck were switched on moments before impact. But she said she believed she had hit her brakes.

Cross-examined by prosecutor Nick Tucker as to why she didn’t move into an outside lane earlier, she said she was blocked by a tailing car moving to overtake, which dazzled her with its lights.

The driver of that car, David Clark, who was recalled to give evidence for a second time, told jurors he was several hundred yards behind.

He said he saw no brake lights and insisted: “All the way through there was ample opportunity to pull out. I don’t tailgate people.”

Mr Clark had earlier told the court how the truck had been “lit up like a Christmas tree.”

Mr Tucker also quizzed Lowe over interviews with police in which she changed her account of a “shadowy figure” she claimed she saw near the recovery truck.

He also suggested there were gaps in her memory because she had been unconscious. But Lowe told the jury that she had not fallen asleep.

“There is a minuscule gap in my account and that’s because I couldn’t see because of the bright white lights,” she said.

She insisted she was fit to drive home from Bournemouth to Leeds after being awake for 17 hours, although she admitted that with the benefit of hindsight that she wished she had checked into a hotel for the night instead.

Recalling an incident when she fell asleep at the wheel aged 22, she said she was now “older and wiser” and knew when to take breaks.

Lowe, of Gypsy Mead, Leeds, denies causing death by dangerous driving.

Proceeding.