A WOMAN who ploughed into the back of a recovery truck, killing the mechanic as he worked at the roadside, has insisted she was not asleep.

Susan Lowe, 62, said she behaved "like a rabbit caught in headlamps" and panicked when she claimed bright white lights from the truck were switched on moments before impact.

She said she believed she had slammed on her brakes.

On the third day of the trial at Southampton Crown Court prosecutor Nick Tucker cross-examined her over police interviews in which she appeared to change her account of a "shadowy figure" she saw near the recovery truck.

He also quizzed her over a suggestion she gave that gaps in her recall were because she was unconscious.

But Lowe told the jury that she had not fallen asleep.

She insisted she was fit to drive home from Bournemouth to Leeds after being awake for 17 hours.

And 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.

Terry Booth, 52, was killed in the crash that happened at 11.36pm at Poulner Hill near Ringwood on June 12 last year.

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

Proceeding