A 22-YEAR-OLD Ribble Valley chef died when he lost control of his car and collided head-on with a van, an inquest heard.

Robert William Buchanan was airlifted to hospital after being cut free from the wreckage of his car following the collision in Whalley Road, Read.

The dead man's girlfriend, Rebecca Wilcox, who was a front seat passenger, told how seconds before the crash there had been another car behind them flashing his lights and sounding his horn.

She said Robert had not been affected and had continued to drive normally. But the inquest was told that he was travelling at least 60mph as he took a left hand bend shortly after overtaking a lorry.

Robert worked and lived at the Inn at Whitewell, but his home address was in Market Street, Edenfield, Bury. Miss Wilcox, of Burnley Road, Bacup, had stayed with him in the Ribble Valley on the night before the accident and he was running her into work in Burnley.

She said she remembered going round a sharp bend and then Robert saying something like "there is an idiot up my backside." She looked in the mirror on her sun visor and saw a red car close behind them flashing his headlights and sounding his horn.

Miss Wilcox said he was driving normally and taking his time. The next thing she knew Robert had pulled out to overtake a lorry. "We were half way past when I saw a white van coming in the opposite direction," said Miss Wilcox. "The van was swerving but I cannot remember much after that." Conrad Binney, of Padiham Road, Sabden, the driver of the white van, told the inquest that as a result of the injuries he suffered he had no recollection of the day's events after he had made a delivery of fish in Todmorden.

Roger Bostock, also of Padiham Road, Sabden, who was travelling with him, said that as they approached a right hand bend he saw a car coming round in the opposite direction. The car's back end had gone and Mr Bostock immediately said: "He's lost it."

Derek Griffiths, of Stanhill Drive, Burnley, and Jeanette Snape, a nurse, of Cherry Tree Way, Helmshore, were all travelling towards Whalley.

None of them mentioned any other vehicles except a lorry travelling in the opposite direction. Lorry driver John Kinder, of Calf Hall Road, Barnoldswick, said he had passed the bend known as Devil's Elbow and was aware there were several cars behind him.

He said that as he passed the entrance to Read Hall, he thought two cars overtook him but he could not be 100 per cent sure. He said he saw the Mondeo take a racing line through the bend.

The medical cause of death was given as a head injury and deputy coroner Carolyn Singleton recorded a verdict of accidental death.