'Death Trap'

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Wed 22 Aug 2001 11:11
'Death Trap' - Piers
Snippet from a report of another bike crash from a local paper...

Yesterday the Argus reported how horrified motorist Cliff Hegan, who was following the BMW and witnessed the crash, labelled the stretch of road a "death trap".

But Councillor Bob Bright, Newport council's Cabinet member for community safety, said: "I don't think it is a particularly dangerous road. However, I would like the accident experts' views on what happened, and road traffic engineers will carry out a report."

A Gwent Police spokeswoman said: "I don't believe the road is a death trap, but certain areas of the A48 can be dangerous because it is a high-speed road."

A resident who lives near the scene of the crash, Mrs Pat Davies, said: "It is a tragedy when someone is killed in an accident like this. "Road accidents don't really happen that often around here."

- This area of road is a long straight with three lanes, the centre one being clearly marked with chevrons for turning into the pub. You can see the pub entrance from miles away.... What Mr. Hegan defines as a safe road would be interesting to know (perhaps he's related to Lynn Faulds-Wood). Nice to see some sense from the council and police. I've seen a couple of pretty close near misses here due to people overtaking a long line of traffic and not pulling in before the chevrons - and then someone in that line turning left into the pub. OK, so the person overtaking is likely to be exceeding the speed limit but it's the fact they aren't overtaking in a safe manner that's the real problem and cause of accidents. But often it's because drivers in the line tailgate making it difficult to pull back in, that you chance another couple of cars....

Further up the road it's now 40 mph due to recent building of big housing estates and subsequent rise in young kids and general traffic. Guess where the cars that overtake me at 60 odd mph through this area turn off into - yes the flamming new housing estates!!

I'd love to see an improvement in drivers attitudes to others, and a bit more thinking rather than just doing when driving. I can't see this happening if we are all conditioned into thinking not being caught by speed cameras makes us safe. One of my mates berated me for saying I enjoyed driving quickly and then drove us along a motorway about 3 foot from the back of cars in front, sitting at exactly 70mph - he'd been caught on camera a few months earlier so knew all about safe driving due to the educational effect of 3 points and a £40 fine.

Piers
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Wed 22 Aug 2001 11:57
Re: 'Death Trap' - Michael
is motorway, or even higher than 50mph driving, part of the driving test nowadays?
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Wed 22 Aug 2001 13:30
Re: 'Death Trap' - Dave
Piers wrote:

> One of my mates berated me for saying I enjoyed driving
> quickly and then drove us along a motorway about 3 foot from
> the back of cars in front, sitting at exactly 70mph

Tell me about it. Mate slagged off a biker for making a safe overtake on double solid whites.

Two weeks before he'd driven into the back of a lorry.

He really beleived that crashing was safe but overtaking was dangerous. Weird.
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