MYSTERY surrounds the death of a popular Aberaeron engineering student whose car inexplicably veered into the path of an oncoming tipper truck causing a fatal collision.

Mathew Wyn Evans, 20, of 14 Alban Square, was driving home from college in Llanelli on the afternoon of 15 May when the accident happened on the A485 near Pontarsais.

Carmarthenshire coroner Mark Layton heard evidence that Mr Evans had used his mobile phone shortly before the crash, was suffering from an inflamed eye and had traces of MDA and cocaine in his system.

But he stressed there was no definitive evidence as to what had caused Mr Evans to drift into the offside lane as he headed northward.

Police accident investigator Sgt Shane Davies – who concluded the crash was due to driver error - said the lorry’s dashcam footage showed the young man’s red Ford Fiesta straying into its path while entering a sweeping right-hand bend.

Mr Evans’s mobile was used for seven seconds shortly before impact but the officer could not be certain it was in use at the time of the crash.

Lorry driver Kevin Hubbard told police he had little recollection of what happened.

“As I’ve come round the corner and down the hill all I can remember is a flash of red,” he said.

“It all happened so fast, but he was on my side of the road.”

Fellow lorry driver Emyr Lewis, who was following behind, watched in horror as the incident unfolded.

“I saw this small red car in the opposite carriageway heading towards the truck in front – I knew immediately that something was going to happen,” he said.

“I saw the car collide with the lorry and there were bits of vehicle flying everywhere.”

A post mortem revealed Mr Evans died of multiple injuries.

Motorist Robert Stanley told how the Fiesta was behind him on entering Peniel and he became so concerned at the way it was being driven he aborted a planned manoeuvre to turn right.

Carl Hilton, a teacher at Llanelli’s Coleg Sir Gâr, said Mr Evans had been suffering from a badly-inflamed eye that day which prompted a nurse to give him an eye patch.

“It was quite bad so I advised him to go to hospital and not to drive his car,” he added.

Recording a conclusion that death was the result of a road traffic collision, Mr Layton said: “Mathew had a problem with his eye, had used his phone and taken some drugs.

“What caused this unfortunate accident could have been down to one or none of these reasons – or a combination of all three.

“Unfortunately for Mathew’s family we cannot say for certain.”

In a statement read out by coroner’s officer Malcolm Thompson, the Evans family said their family home was “a lot quieter” without their “loving and caring” son who was a renowned joker.

“His death has left a big hole in the family that will never be filled,” they added.