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The Rhodesia Herald, January 25, 1972

The body of a new-born baby was found in the mangled wreckage of a car after a weekend smash on Britain’s M1 motorway.

The child’s mother, three other young women and two young men also died in the head-on smash and the fire which followed.

The mother, Mrs Gillian Bamford (25), was the daughter-in-law of a British millionaire industrialist, Mr Joe Bamford.

One of the other three women killed was Miss Jane Barry (23), who was supposed to get married next Saturday.

The women, all close friends, were driving north from London to buy clothes for the wedding.

As they drove, they were unaware of a desperate police race to halt another car heading towards them on the wrong side of the motorway.

Earlier, a shaken motorist had reported that a white car had sped past him heading in the wrong direction. Police squad-cars converged on the area, but they were too late.

The white car in which the two men were driving collided with the car carrying the young women.

A senior police officer said: “The patrol cars, which were alerted after the first report, were on the scene very quickly. But by then the women’s car was blazing so fiercely they could not get close enough to use fire extinguishers.”

A fireman commented: “It was horrifying-the worst crash I have seen.”

The north-bound section of the motorway was closed to traffic for more than three hours while it was cleared of wreckage.

Lessons for today

• Drivers should respect the sanctity of human life by abiding to road rules always. The horrific crash narrated in the story could easily have been avoided had all the cars been driving in the same direction. One of the biggest challenges faced by drivers, especially those in Harare, is having to deal with unruly pirate taxi drivers who drive against traffic especially during peak hours and when running away from the police.
• Widespread research has shown that most traffic accidents occur because of some type of human error. The percentage of accidents that are a result of human error is as high as 90 percent.
• In case of emergency it is important to issue alerts quickly through all platforms especially radios.