news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4329455.stm
All up north? I'm sure there's some down south!
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Both A53 and and A54 (Cat and Fiddle) are excellent driving roads and often people push the car/bike and their skills to the limit on them with disasterous results.
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Great roads; same with those going cross country starting A6-- or A7-- from M6 or M74 up north or vice versa to A1 or to the Edinburgh area.
But the most dangerous roads are those with one or more crass idiots driving on them - unfortunately that applies to virtually all of them...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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The A3 between Guildford and The M25 has suddenly become a death trap over the last two years. Three major "close the roads its fatal" last year and already three this year. Previously it was one a year if that.
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The A3 between Guildford and The M25 has suddenly become a death trap over the last two years. Three major "close the roads its fatal" last year and already three this year. Previously it was one a year if that.
Wonder why, it is triple carriage way from Guildford to Tolworth, basically motorway standard, the bit from Guildford to the A3 is more twisty with a couple of corners that, when travelling south towatds Guildford, come up at you fast though no worse than some on the M40.
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Unfortunately some roads seem to bring out the "idiot" in people - have a few around here in North Wales where you constantly see people trying to kill themselves - on sundays it's often Bikers.
The most unfortunate thing is that the government/authorities seem to think the solution is speed cameras, but looking at recent statistics they don't seem to be reducing road deaths.
Surely we should be looking more closely at why certain roads cause this behaviour & spending money on redesign. There must be lots of relatively simple improvements to road design that could be implemented which would have an effect - moreso than cameras anyway.
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Presonally, I hate the A14 west of Cambridge. Heavy commercial traffic driving too fast on too narrow lanes with plenty of cheaply planned junctions. Mentioned on the 5live traffic reports almost daily.
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Oh dont - I hate the A14, specially at the Cathorp interchange.
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Couldn't agree more. Regarding junctions, it has the most bizarre laybys which have absolutely no space for speeding up before rejoining carriageway. And the government has, in its wisdom, put on hold any further proposed redevelopment of this road.
Crazy. As crazy as the plonker who joined this road yesterday evening straight out onto the outside carriageway through a non-existent gap in the traffic, swerving round the rear end of a lorry. This is what makes an already dangerous road a veritable death trap. And its lucky-me's daily commute.
Splodgeface
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Perhaps its ( more speed cameras x less dedicated traffic police) = more stupid behaviour.
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A bit of deja vu with this thread from a similar one I posted a few weeks ago about the A59 between Harrogate and Skipton. One of the main issues is that in the UK road design is never considered during fatal accident investigations.
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the A59 between Harrogate and Skipton.>>
I love the A59 from Preston to Harrogate - great fun but, as you are obviously aware, there are some stretches where you do have to apply a bit of common sense.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Anybody know what the 'how dangerous' stats are for the A356 between Crewkerne and Dorchester?
Boy, I drove fast down that road...
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Roads aren't dangerous - they are inanimate. People who drive too fast or recklessly cause the accidents...
Sorry - just annoys me when someone says "Oooh, that road's dangerous!....
I'll now retire back to my corner.
DB
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Whilst this is partly true bad design can lead to accidents. Case in point A59 - right turn down a country lane immediately after a blind left hander - national speed limit. No indication of right turn and no central refuge for right turning traffic. Car waiting to turn right is hit from behind by a car coming round the bend - stationary car pushed in to path of oncoming vehicle - resulting in the death of the driver's 2 year old daughter. Inquest rules no driver was to blame - no speeding, no recklessness etc etc, just bad design. As I said above this was not considered during the inquest. This junction is now being improved to insert a right turn refuge.
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Blind left hand bend - a driver should be travelling fast enough so he can stop within the distance he can see for.
Whilst I agree this isn't what happens in real life - I am still of the opinion that even bad road design shouldn't be granted "contributory factor status". Driver error and mechanical failure - that's the only causes....
(Sorry - bad day at work so far!)
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>Roads aren't dangerous - they are inanimate.< This is clearly a truism, DieselBoy. As this news item made clear, the A537 Macc-Buxton road tops the list mainly because it is nice and twisty and therefore loved by bikers. I was on it myself (in a car) a few years ago soon after a biker accident, and the road had to be closed to protect the ambulance while they cleaned up. That forced all motorists to turn round and find alternative routes, and there aren't many.
Presumably the only way to make these roads less 'dangerous' would be to straighten them out until all bends were negotiable at 90mph, which is clearly impossible on the A537.
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The A3 Guildford to M25 has certainly seen some action (or rather closures) recently but how about the minor road from A3/M25 to Effingham Junction. IIRC its at 3 deaths from 4 major crashes in 2 years - remarkable considering it's size/traffic.
There's a great biker's pub (Black Swan/Mucky Duck) halfway along but the biker boys seem to have the sense to ride carefully until they hit the dual carriageway- it's car drivers 'attacking' the bends that come a cropper.
Dan
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I don't think that there are ANY dangerous roads per se. There are incompetent drivers, and it is these incompetent drivers that give certain roads a bad name.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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I agree it's more about driver competence but there are roads with more hazards, some of which are due to bad design, some of which are because of the lie of the land etc., I think it makes sense to describe such roads as more dangerous than other roads.
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The A3 Guildford to M25 has certainly seen some action (or rather closures) recently but how about the minor road from A3/M25 to Effingham Junction. IIRC its at 3 deaths from 4 major crashes in 2 years - remarkable considering it's size/traffic. There's a great biker's pub (Black Swan/Mucky Duck) halfway along but the biker boys seem to have the sense to ride carefully until they hit the dual carriageway- it's car drivers 'attacking' the bends that come a cropper. Dan
I know the road well, it is good to drive, the Black Swan pub is on a cross roads, never thought of it as particularly dangerous though.
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Either just before or just after Christmas there was a nasty pile up outside the pub - looked like someone had pulled out and got T -boned. Result was two cars with tops cut off and a 3rd in the hedge.
The other incidents were by the house at Hatchford that has the limo from time to time (head on smash IIRC), on the bend in Boldermere woods (transit hit tree - drunk driver?) and the last down by Effingham Junction station (car hit tree).
They have flowers from time to time that tell you how they panned out.
I enjoy the road too but take slower now, especailly when wet.
Dan
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It appears that the AA has been caught "exagerating the truth".
From this weeks 'motorcycle news'
Where their web site said 26 bikers killed on the Cat & Fiddle, this was corrected to one some days later.
Cheshire Police say "We've questioned the figures with the AA. We don't know where they got the data from. And to say there's a mini-massacre is appalling".
The AA report author Dr Joanne Hill said "the figures came from the Department of Transport". The DfT said "we don't know where the figures came from. We don't think the AA's methodology is particularly robust."
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