Daughter witnessed Yorkshire Dales motorbike crash that killed her dad

Northallerton Coroners’ Court heard on Friday that bikers Michael Lynas, 57 and Martin Ragg, 59, both died in the crash on the A6108 Masham to Leyburn Road on April 25 last year.

Although eyewitness statements conflicted, forensic evidence from the crash site concluded that Mr Ragg’s BMW motorbike was in Mr Lynas’s lane when the two bikes collided.

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The inquest heard that Mr Lynas and Mr Ragg were approaching a blind summit from opposite directions and Mr Ragg was positioning his bike to overtake a Mazda MX5 when the crash happened.

Mr Lynas’s daughter, Eve, had been riding behind her dad on her Kawasaki ER5 in the moments before the crash as the pair headed north to Leyburn.

Eve said: “Dad was going up, I was just behind, there was a bike on the wrong side of the road, on our side of the road, I saw it and there was nothing I could do.”

Eve described how she was left with bruises from motorbike debris that flew from the impact before she pulled over and dropped her own bike on a grass verge.

The motorbikes collided on a blind summit on the A6108 near Masham Picture: GOOGLE

An MOD officer who was driving nearby rushed to help and carried out CPR on both men for around 15 minutes before emergency services including two air ambulances arrived.

Sadly both Mr Lynas and Mr Ragg were confirmed dead at the scene and a post-mortem revealed they had each suffered multiple injuries.

In a statement to the court, Mr Lynas’s wife Tina described her husband as a passionate motorcyclist who owned around 13 bikes and enjoyed buying and restoring motorbikes – including the Moto Guzzi 500 he had been riding on the day of the crash.

Originally from Middlesbrough, the couple have two children and latterly lived in South Kilvington near Thirsk.

Tina said: “Mick’s passing has left a huge, gaping hole in our lives.

“He was a caring, loving man and was not only my husband but my best friend.”

She said Mr Lynas, an egineer who worked offshore, was ‘very community driven’, adding: “He would do anything for anyone, he will be sadly missed and will forever be in our hearts and dreams.”

In a statement read to the court, Mr Ragg’s wife Jayne said her life and that of the couple’s three children were ‘shattered in an instant’ on the day he died.

She said the night before the day of the crash, Mr Ragg said he did not want to wake her in the morning before he left for his ride so she ‘didn’t even get to say goodbye’ to him.

The couple lived in Skelton on Ure near Ripon and ran their own business, with Mr Ragg working as a sales manager.

Jayne said "He was a caring, loving human being with a heart of gold who worked hard to provide for his family.

“We would also like to send our condolences to Mick's family, as they have been walking the same path of grief and shock."

“We will miss Martin forever, we are devastated that we lost him,” she added.

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In a statement, Andrew Whiting, a friend who had been riding behind Mr Ragg before the crash, said he did not see him cross over to the other side of the road to overtake and initially thought the crash was caused by Mr Ragg’s bike 'locking up'.

However, the Mazda driver Brian Ramsay recalled Mr Ragg's motorbike was in his blind spot overtaking his car on a blind summit in the moments before the crash.

Evidence given by North Yorkshire Police collision investigator Paddy Green confirmed that the point of impact was on the northbound carriageway and the road had a solid double white centre lines indicating no overtaking.

North Yorkshire assistant coroner Oliver Longstaff accepted this evidence, saying: “It is far more likely than not that Mr Ragg was offside of the double white lines.”

Mr Longstaff praised the families for agreeing to a joint inquest and said that although losing a loved one was ‘a truly dreadful thing’, perhaps they could take some comfort that both men had ‘died doing something they loved’.

He recorded that both men died as a result of a road traffic collision.

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