Texting and driving: Police release fatal car crash video to warn drivers

Footage shows driver scrolling through music before causing eight-vehicle pile up

Police have released footage of a fatal car crash in a warning to drivers texting behind the wheel.

The harrowing video shows the moment a lorry driver ploughed into a line of stationary vehicles as he checked his mobile phone.

Tomasz Kroker was jailed for 10 years for causing the deaths of Tracy Houghton, 45; sons Ethan, 13, and Joshua, 11; and her partner’s daughter Aimee Goldsmith, also 11.

Dash-cam footage showed Kroker scrolling through music at the wheel before causing an eight-vehicle pile up.

The court heard the car carrying the family was crushed to a third of its size.

In the video, Aimee's mum, Kate Goldsmith, said it "sickens" her to see drivers continuing to use their phones.

She said: "If they had seen the devastation they brought my family, or to other families, by using phones, illegally... distracting themselves from driving a potential weapon...

"Would they be as sickened as we are?"

Kroker was convicted of four counts of causing death by dangerous driving and given four years, running concurrently, for causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He was also banned from driving for seven years.

Surrey Police said they showed the film to a lorry driver who had been caught using his phone behind the wheel.

In a tweet, Surrey Police said: "Driver of a 26-tonne lorry stopped after the driver was texting with both hands.

"Six points. £200 fine and some hard hitting video shown to him.

"The video, as you no doubt will ask, was the in cab video footage of the A34 fatal collision. Shows how tiny distraction leads to fatalities."