Pensioners victims of fatal road accidents

Two women who died in a series of crashes on West Midlands roads over the weekend were both pensioners, it emerged today.

The tragic victims were revealed as two men were killed in a crash involving two motorcyles in Staffordshire yesterday.

A woman killed after being hit by a lorry in Blackheath on Friday was today named as 71-year-old Cynthia Chapple.

She was confirmed dead at the scene following the crash in Holly Lane, at the junction with High Street, at just after midday on Friday.

Neighbours in nearby Terrace Street, where she lived, said the pensioner used crutches but despite her disability she was thought to often make her own way into Blackheath and then get taxi trips home.

Neighbour Lynn Lenton, aged 57, said: "She was a quiet person who kept herself to herself.

"You just don't expect something like that to happen and it is very sad."

Another woman killed when a car left the road and hit a tree on a busy Wolverhampton street was an 85-year-old from the South Staffordshire village of Bilbrook, police said.

The victim was a rear seat passenger in the white Citroen Saxo car who suffered a heart attack. She was taken to New Cross Hospital after the crash on Wood End Road in Wednesfield at around 3.15pm on Friday but died shortly after arrival.

Police say another woman, aged 54, who was a front seat passenger, was taken to hospital with minor injuries. She has since been released from hospital. The driver is thought to be a woman in her 20s.

Yesterday two men died after a motorcycle crash just outside the village of Barton-Under-Needwood, Burton-upon-Trent shortly after 9pm last night.

And a man in his 30s suffered serious leg injuries following a crash in Dudley.

Fire crews attended the crash on the Dudley Southern Bypass between Cinder Bank island and Scotts Green island on Sunday morning. The road was closed for around 30 minutes following the crash at 8.15am..

A nine-year-old boy hurt in a crash in Grange Road, Lye, on Friday was today being treated at Birmingham Children's Hospital.