A car reached 165km/h before a fatal crash in Dublin's suburbs.
An open verdict has been recorded at an inquest into the death of an 84-year-old woman.
Reports have stated that the women's car travelled at 165km/h along a suburban road before crashing into five vehicles.
The crash occurred on September 11th, 2024 at Hillside Drive, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.
Elizabeth Veitch Smyth (84), suffered fatal injuries in the crash and was pronounced dead at the scene. The inquest head that her car hit a box van, an Audi Q7, a Volkswagen Passat, a Volkswagen ID4 and a BMW 1.
A commercial driver Stephen Noonan, who was driving along Hillside Drive at the time of the incident, told The Irish Times that he estimated the Kia was travelling at 160km/h.
It has now been confirmed by Garda forensic collision examiners that the car was travelling at the speed of 165km/h.
Garda forensic officers told the inquest that footage from cameras mounted on the front and rear of the box van showed the first collision occurred at 10.34am. The Kia then travelled 57.7 metres over 1.29 seconds before colliding with the Audi.
They said conditions were clear and bright at the time, with no defects or unevenness on the road surface. The footage also appeared to show Veitch Smyth “slumped over the wheel” of her car in the seconds leading up to the crash.
The Kia was subsequently subjected to a technical examination by gardaí, which found no defects with its braking or acceleration systems, the inquest heard.
The coroner said via The Irish Times that a postmortem found that Veitch Smyth died from “hypovolemic shock” caused by significant blood loss from an extensive scalp injury sustained in the road traffic collision.
However, the examination found no evidence of an acute medical event that may have occurred before the crash. Keane stressed that this did not rule out the possibility of such an incident, as some medical episodes may not be detectable during a postmortem.
The coroner said it was “simply not clear” what had happened, and therefore an open verdict was considered appropriate.
She offered her condolences to Veitch Smyth’s family, describing their loss as “shocking and very devastating”.
