Accident
The coach, a 1967 Bedford VAM5 run by Riley's Luxury Coaches, was carrying 45 female pensioners on a day trip from Thornaby-on-Tees, North Yorkshire, to Grassington, in the Yorkshire Dales. The trip was organised by Dorothy White, Lady Mayoress of Thornaby who had previously run several such trips. While driving on a downhill stretch of the B6265 road between Greenhow and Hebden, stand-in coach driver Roger Marriott, a British Steel Corporation security officer, missed a gear. He then applied the brakes. The brakes had been serviced a week before the crash and had new linings, but as magistrates were later told, "defects" due to improper maintenance "meant there was no braking on the offside rear wheel". The brakes were insufficient to hold the coach, and it accelerated, heating up the brakes until they eventually failed as the coach travelled down the , 1:6 (17%, 10°) gradient from Fancarl Top to the bottom of the valley downstream of Grimwith Reservoir. After crashing through a steel crash barrier and a high stone parapet above the bank of theInquest
An inquest at Skipton Town Hall, in July 1975, recorded a verdict of accidental death on the victims. Jury foreman John Mitchell said the accident was caused by the inability of the driver to negotiate the bend, owing to deficient brakes on the coach, due to possible lack of care in the maintenance of the braking system. The pathologist reported that the main cause of the loss of life was the crushing of the victims between the seats. The proprietor of the coach company, Norman Riley, was later fined £75 () for running a motor vehicle with defective brakes.Aftermath
Even before the crash there had been a campaign to have electro-magnetic retarders fitted to all coaches. An electro-magnetic retarder uses the rotation of the axle to generate electricity, the energy for which has to come from the movement of the axle. The use of such a retarder means that the frictional brakes are kept cool for use at slow speeds. Local newspaper '' The Yorkshire Post'' staged a trial two weeks later: a coach which had been fitted with the retarder was put out of gear and allowed to run away down the hill without braking, and the retarder kept the coach's speed within safe limits. The Dibble's Bridge crash brought the issue to a wider public; ultimately, legislation was passed requiring improved braking systems. A memorial service was held at St Paul's Church, Thornaby, in May 2015 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the crash, when a memorial plaque was unveiled outside Thornaby Town Hall listing the names of those who died.Those who died
Roger Marriott (driver), Betty Aitchison, Margaret Baldwin, Lillian Barclay, Rosaline Brown, Jenny Butler, Gladys Callaghan, Isobel Chisholm, Ada Christon, Gwendoline Dodsworth, Ida Fisher, Hannah Forth, Hilda Gibbon, Irene Groskop, Grace Harrison, Edna Herron, Elizabeth Hill, Doris Howsden, Henrietta Kirk, Jenny Lowe, Kathleen Maud, Margaret Mennell, Elsie Middleton, Henrietta Pedley, Eva Pratt, Harriet Riley, Eileen Ross, Jean Smart, Eva Thomas, Dorothy White (mayoress), Freda Wilkinson, Edith Woodhouse, and Sylvia Worn.The injured
Alice Benson, Mary Booth, Edna Clementson, Edna Dobson, Joan Hymer, Joan Marriott, Lillian McLeod, Doreen Parkinson, Helena Pickering, Madeleine Pratt, May Richardson, Margaret Robinson, and Eva Rogers.References
{{authority control 1975 disasters in the United Kingdom 1975 in England 1975 road incidents 1970s in North Yorkshire Bus incidents in England May 1975 events in the United Kingdom Transport disasters in Yorkshire