Dad who died in motorbike crash sold car due to cost of living

A motorcyclist who died in a crash which killed two people had recently sold his car due to the cost of living crisis, his friends have said.

Matthew Woodward, 33, died in an early-morning crash between a car and a motorbike in the Vale of Glamorgan last week.

The driver of the car also died in the collision on the A48 between Bonvilston and Cowbridge, which was reported at around 4.25am on Friday.

Police have not yet confirmed the identities of either victim.

South Wales Police is continuing its investigation into the crash and is appealing for information from anyone who may have witnessed the collision.

The force says its thoughts are with those affected.

Two of Mr Woodward’s closest friends have set up a GoFundMe page to help his fiancée, Lauren Goodman, and immediate family with funeral costs.

Oscar Jenkins and Ryan Smith have known Mr Woodward, or “Woody” as he was known, for around 20 years.

Originally from the Shrewsbury area of Shropshire, he had since moved to Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan.

‘Painful decision’

According to his friends, Mr Woodward, who worked as an HGV driver, had only recently given up his car.

“Basically due to the cost of living crisis, his main vehicle which was a car is what he sold to help towards that obligation,” Mr Smith told Sky News.

“So he was using his motorbike in the interim whilst it was summer as well to get to and from work.”

Mr Jenkins said Mr Woodward recently visited him and they spoke about the difficulties of the current economic situation.

“He came to visit me as well and during those conversations he was just saying, the cost of living, he’d recently remortgaged his house which had made things really difficult with a young child,” he said.

“He was talking about getting a new job as a train driver because he’d heard that they pay better. Realising it’s a difficult one to get into, but you could just see those efforts were always with him to say if he can do anything he can to provide for his family, he was always going to.

“For someone who was a massive motor enthusiast, it would have been a painful decision to sell a car because he just loved driving and different things like that.”

‘The most gentle soul’

His friends said Mr Woodward “got on with everybody”.

“There’s a lot of wider family and people who only met him a few times who were distraught with the news and that’s testament to the kind of personality that he was,” Mr Smith said.

“He was the most personal person that you’d ever meet because the diversity of his friends, they were just from every walk of life you could imagine, and he got on with everybody.”

“He was the most gentle soul that you could ever imagine,” Mr Jenkins added.

“Super friendly and accommodating, would do anything for his friends. But then he had almost an alter ego which was someone who was obsessed with anything Formula 1, racing.”

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The friends added they hoped to be able to create a “legacy” in Mr Woodward’s memory.

“For someone else to be involved is just horrific for us and he [Mr Woodward] would have been beside himself if he had came out okay,” Mr Jenkins said.

“Very much for us it’s being able to talk about Woody and explain to people what he was actually really like and how amazing of a person he was, but also to help him create a legacy which he would have absolutely wanted for his daughter and also a message for safety and for the road,” Mr Smith added.

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