Warning over dangers of A5 Chirk bypass
Saturday 3rd April 2010, 12:29PM BST.
Motorists are still not grasping the message that the A5 Chirk bypass, which was the scene of a double fatal crash, is “highly dangerous”, a councillor warned today.
Councillor Ian Roberts was speaking after four cars were involved in a another pile-up on the road on Thursday.
Nobody was injured in the crash at the Halton roundabout but the collision did cause delays to traffic. It was close to the scene of the March 22 crash in which two people died.
Councillor Roberts, who represents Chirk at Wrexham Council, said: “People need to realise this road is highly dangerous and they need to be extra careful. That message needs to get out.
“This is another crash on this road and just days after the dreadful collision which killed two people.
“What we can say is that because the victims of the earlier crash were from north and south Wales, the message is getting across Wales that this route is dangerous.
“Improvements must be made immediately because more and more traffic is using this route. Latest figures say there is about 26,500 vehicles each day on that route and the road cannot cope.”
Councillor Roberts said he expected more chaos tomorrow on the bypass as thousands of people arrived for the Chirk Car Boot sale which is held on land next to the A5.
He said the problems could be even worse than normal because restrictions remained on the bypass during repairs. Barriers were damaged in the March 22 crash.
The car driver Stuart Davies, 45, an Airbus worker from Mold, and 43-year-old Hefin Jones, from Cardigan, who was at the wheel of the cattle truck, were killed.
The driver of the tanker escaped with only a minor head injury.
Road bosses have said the repairs to the bypass will continue next week.
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Eastern Europe to Holyhead… dual carriageway all the way except the fourteen miles of the “Oswestry Bypass”…
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Ithought the road crossed the border into Shropshire and they did not want to spend the money to make it a dual carriageway in the first place or am I wrong?
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The road is not dangerous. The awful standard of driving is.
Just hide some normal video cameras on that stretch of road. Review the footage every few days and ban the drivers causing problems. It’s always the same vehicles.
Job done.
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I agree people still continue to overtake on the bridge where the fatalities happenend and also along most of the single white lined stretches of the A5,It is purely bad drivers.Monitered traffic cameras would sort the problem but this costs money- but then so does closing the road for 3 days for structeral repairs.
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i agree dualling the A5 should be the no 1 priority for the council not folly projects like the north west releif road! THIS IS HEALTH AND SAFETY CRITICAL
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meanwhile lib dems want to cut 3 billion from road building budgets! crazy doomed to obsucrity party
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It just needs some double white lines. A similar section of road on the A303 in Somerset used top have lots of accidents caused by over taking. Its now two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other. After a mile or two, this swaps over. It enables over taking thereby preventing frustration and the number of accidents is well down. As far as solutions go, I’d have thought this would be the cheapest.
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totally agree it should be dualled, if not it should be single carriage way each side in the interim , the “halfway house” option with that middle “lane of death” cannot be allowed to go on its a critical risk to public safety
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