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Fears for schemes as accident rate drops
Wednesday 1st October 2008, 11:50AM BST.
Accidents on Shropshire’s A49 have seen a major drop but another two people have been killed on the road in the first six months of 2008, figures have revealed.The period has seen a 33 per cent fall in accidents on the south Shropshire section of the road compared with last year, and a 25 per cent drop in casualties.
Safety bosses believe it is down to drivers taking more care – but concerns have been raised that further improvement works may slow following the drop.
Members of the A49 Safety Campaign Group, were presented with the information by Sergeant Ally Harrison, of West Mercia Police, at their September meeting.
The figures show that overall accidents on the A49 south section, which runs from Bayston Hill, near Shrewsbury, to just past Ludlow, have dropped from 27 to 18 between 2007 and August 2008.
One of this year’s accidents included two fatalities, while in the six months before there had been two fatal accidents, each with one victim.
Bayston Hill councillor Ted Clarke, secretary of the group, said: “There are no hotspots either now or previously on this stretch, the drop would appear to be down to driver behaviour which is very fortunate.”
“Everybody is pleased to see accidents down but sad to see the same number of fatalities.”
But Councillor Mike Bradbury, of Condover Parish Council, said more work was still needed to be done to prevent future accidents. He said he feared more work on the road may be affected due to the improvement in accident figures.
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The A49 is too windy full of bends. Land should be compulsary purchased alongside either side of the A49 to make it a straight road similar to the M6.
It will cost money but its the only way to go.
And with the amount of traffic, slow lorries on the A49 it should be made into a 4 lane road, 2 lanes in either direction
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I agree with ‘A MARD GAY NOB’ (anag). This would be the ideal way to wipe out Craven Arms.
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Surely it would be safer to impose a 30mph limit along its entire length, install speed bumps and put chicanes on any straight bits. Any parts where it would still be possible to overtake should then have the popular white crosshatching applied to the centre of the road.
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The Church Stretton to Shrewsbury road always seems to be full of lunatics who drive like they own the road and couldn’t case less if they speed or cause others to have a crash.
Its’ become a motorway on an A road – a few by-passes wont fix it, the rural councils need to face up to this and do something. At least making it more like the Ludlow stretch would be safer, but ruin the rural environment.
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David, why stop at 30mph surely 20 mph would be much safer or find a man with a red flag and limit it to 4 MPH………failing that we could start educating motorists to drive better.
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with the number of hgv’s using the a49 it is already down to 30mph in many places, the onibury straight of 18 yards can be a dangerous place to overtake. this road definitely needs dualling throughout. perhaps our layabout mp’s in permanent opposition could start lobbying
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Horses and carts are safer still. I’m surprised theyre not pushing for that. To hell with progress, lets all go back to walking.
Sooner or later someone with an ounce of sense will realise if you slow all the traffic enough, the amount of time wasted by everyone crawling along will be greater than that of the expected lives saved. Mind you, maybe not. The ‘slow everyone down’ brigade dont have an ounce of sense between them!
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The road is a nightmare to drive. Flat caps at every turn and no overtaking points. I make an effort to avoid it.
Have seen people overtaking near Aston Hall on the bend which is suicidal and the Ludlow spots are generally too short to make it.
The worst crash I ever witnessed was caused by a flat cap going so slow that when the opportunity eventually came to overtake everyone took it. Resulted in no one being hurt thank goodness but the cars didn’t half bang around and roll.
The flat cap kept on his way probably not realising what he’d caused.
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many of these hgv’s on the a49 could and should use the m5/m6 unless they need access to our county
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Church stretton is full of really old drivers, going to slowly and really mad drivers going to fast. Add that to the windy, bendy A49 and you get lots of accidents. Start making people over 65 take a driving test and really punish those who get caught speeding.
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They should build more public lavatories along the A49 because all these old people are going slow looking for a convient place to relieve themselves. Once relieved they have no problem getting upto 45mph!
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Its not just the A49, the whole of Shropshire is grinding to a halt.
I’ve just been to Churchstoke and back, followed half a dozen drivers who never ventured over 40mph. On the return journey I followed a tractor for over 4 miles that never pulled in once despite the fact he had over 12 cars stuck behind him. When I finally did get past, the car in front proceeded to drive at about 10mph faster than when he had been behind the tractor !
Never mind reducing the maximum speed limits, in order to reduce accidents now we need to impose minimum speed limits, otherwise more and more motorists will be taking risks trying to get past these anti social people who want to wander along and to hell with the fact theyre delaying everyone else.
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Well said, David, that is something that I have been saying for years but the standard of driving is so low in this country now that not many seem to be capable, or feel safe, going over 40 MPH but is it any wonder when the roads are “dumbed down” so much that people don’t have chance to practice and experience driving at anything over 40 MPH.
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In New Zealand its the law that you have to pull over if there are more than 5 vehicles behind you. Perhaps we could learn something from those clever Kiwis. They must be clever because they drive on the left like us.
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Lucy,
I don’t think that the people who hold up loads of other cars even know they are doing it, they certainly don’t look in their mirrors so how are they going to find out?
I think all cars should have megaphones so that you can shout to the person in front to
” WAKE UP” and get a move on….;-)
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Its the law in this country that tractors have to pull over if 3 or more vehicles are behind them, but they dont do it, and I’m not aware of one single prosecution ever. The police are happy to jump on people going too fast, but dont bother with those going too slow.
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