A TEENAGE driver speeding in a built-up area may have been distracted by his passengers before ploughing into a pensioner in a late-night death crash, a coroner was told.

An inquest into the death of Richard John Ansty found 19-year-old Stuart West was driving at least 41mph in a 30mph zone when he was knocked down and killed.

Mr Ansty had been wearing a white jacket, white cap and carrying a white plastic shopping bag and was standing behind a blue stationary bus in a well lit street, Southampton Coroners’ Court heard.

The 69-year-old retired naval seaman and lifelong Saints fan had just got off his bus at 9pm one evening last January. He was on his way to his home in Padwell Road having visited a working men’s club.

Accident investigator Andrew McDonald calculated that West would have had a view of Mr Ansty in the Avenue for at least 500 metres.

But the inquest heard how West’s young passengers could have distracted him.

And road tests revealed he was speeding in his dad’s silver Peugeot 306 three-door hatchback.

Mr McDonald said: “He [Mr Ansty] could not have appreciated the speed of the Peugeot, with tragic consequences.”

Mr Ansty was thrown eight metres from the car and died later in Southampton General Hospital from multiple injuries.

Recording an accidental death verdict, coroner Keith Wiseman said: “It’s certainly a lesson in terms of driving within the speed limit in a busy area.

“I express my condolences to members of Mr Ansty’s family – it is a large family and this was a terrible way for him to die.” West, of Puffin Close, Lordshill, was jailed in October for two years and banned from driving for two years after admitting causing death by careless driving.

During the court case it emerged that before the horror smash, West, an apprentice mechanic with Bluestar bus company, was fined £135 and given five penalty points by a magistrate for a separate careless driving accident.

He had lost control of his car after hitting a speed bump.