Dibbles Bridge Coach Crash

Dibble's Bridge coach crash
Dibble's Bridge where the accident occurred
Details
Date	27 May 1975
Location	Near Hebden, North Yorkshire
Statistics
Bus	Bedford Duple
Vehicles	1
Deaths	32
Injuries	13

The Dibble's Bridge coach crash was a fatal accident that occurred on 27 May 1975 on the B6265 road, Dibble's Bridge, below Grimwith Reservoir 1.6 miles (2.6 km) east of Hebden, in the civil parish of Hartlington in Craven, North Yorkshire, England. Thirty-one elderly passengers and the driver were killed, and thirteen others injured. It is the worst-ever road accident in the United Kingdom by number of people killed.

The accident occurred when a coach run by Riley's Luxury Coaches carrying pensioners from Thornaby-on-Tees was heading for tea in Grassington. Whilst travelling between Greenhow and Hebden stand-in coach driver Roger Marriott, a British Steel Corporation security officer, missed a gear on the moorland road. The driver then applied the brakes. The brakes had been serviced a week before the crash and had new linings but, as magistrates were later told, due to improper maintenance "the defects meant there was no braking on the offside rear wheel". The brakes were insufficient to hold the coach and it accelerated, heating the brakes up until they eventually failed as the coach travelled down the 1,400-yard (1,300 m) 1:6 (9.5°) (16.67%) gradient from Fancarl Top to the bottom of the valley downstream of Grimwith reservoir. After crashing through a steel crash barrier and a 3-foot (0.91 m) high stone parapet above the bank of the River Dibb it landed on its fibreglass roof in a garden 17 feet (5.2 m) below. The aluminium sides of the coach then buckled on impact with the ground. The son-in-law of the cottage owners, London barrister (now painter and sculptor) Lincoln Seligman, was having a barbecue in the garden at the time and was first on the scene. He later gave an eyewitness account to the Teesside Evening Gazette: "There were screams. I dragged some people out....I don't know how many".