Sunday Times: Death row: Britain's most dangerous road

Sunday Times (London)
September 26, 2004

Death row

The A59 is Britain's most dangerous road, with 43 fatal or serious
accidents over three years. Nine of our readers are condemned to die
by the end of next week on roads just like it. Yet a few hundred
thousand pounds would save some of those lives and many more to come.
Tim Rayment investigates

He was the first person I met. Knocking on the doors of the dead is
never pleasant, and I was putting it off. So I went to the pub. As I
paid for lunch, conscience said it was time to speak to someone. "Is
this a bad road, then?" Why do you ask, said the assistant manager. I
write for a newspaper; I am looking for the most dangerous road in
Britain. "You've come to the right place.This pub has been rebuilt
twice because of accidents. And you may be interested in the stretch
of road that killed my son."

Eileen Campbell works on the A59, a beautiful road that runs from one
side of the country to the other, offering a moving window onto rural
England at its finest. If you have not been there, you should. But
take care on the 19 miles that start in Skipton and end in Harrogate.
This fast but winding asphalt, with junctions that date back to the
horse and cart, is the most treacherous we have.

In fact, if any route has an A in it, pay attention. An analysis of
motoring deaths and injuries shows that we do not understand the risks
of driving. We worry about long motorway journeys. But it is on
A-roads, often before you are out of first gear, that you are most in
danger.

What happened to Eileen Campbell's son is one of several extraordinary
tales that emerge if you ask a computer to work out where the risks
are, then ask people to explain what happened. Kenneth Campbell was
run over by a police car just off the A59. The officers waved
witnesses away without taking names, moved their vehicle before
independent investigators arrived, and three years later they have not
expressed regret. These, then, are the facts behind the roadside
flowers.

The A59 runs from Liverpool up to the Lancastrian city of Preston,
before turning east to enter Yorkshire at the Pennine village of West
Marton. It is the stretch through the Dales that interests us, a
section whose very names*- Wharfedale, Airedale, Ribblesdale; Embsay
Moor, Bolton Abbey, Blubberhouses*- evoke feelings of peace, like a
tranquil version of the shipping forecast. According to an
organisation called EuroRAP, however, the sudden thunderclap of
crashing metal and crushed flesh is probable.

EuroRAP stands for European Road Assessment Programme, a sister to the
scheme that has prompted dramatic changes in car design by awarding
stars to cars. No car maker now would dare to market a model without
four-star crash results. The new project shows that roads can be
assessed too. Junctions that are a death in waiting? Fast single
carriageway where the barrier to a head-on crash is a line of paint?
Non-collapsible street lamps? No star. True, 9 in 10 accidents are
human error, but as cars improve and drivers slow down, attention is
shifting to the highway. "It is no longer acceptable to have roads
that are inherently dangerous," says Professor Angus Wallace, a
surgeon who puts broken people back together.

We asked the AA Motoring Trust, organiser of EuroRAP, to examine the
accident figures for Britain. We removed bikers from the equation,
because on the roads that are riding heaven, they account for up to
96% of bad crashes. Then, if you take account of how busy each road
is, by dividing the number of deaths and serious injuries in three
years by the journeys back and forth in that time, you get the most
hazardous primary route in the nation. You get the A59.

Robyn Lloyd, aged two, was a back-seat passenger when her father's car
was hit from behind as he waited to leave the A59 for a minor road two
days before Christmas. The Peugeot was flung into the path of a third
car, which struck the side, crushing Robyn and her sister, Christi,
then aged eight. The trainee teacher who started this chain of events
told the inquest she was unaware of the Peugeot until she was 50 yards
behind it, travelling at 50mph. Going to the scene, it is hard not to
hold her responsible. But it was not all her fault. The turn-off is on
a fast bend, with nowhere for Robyn Lloyd's father to wait safely for
a break in traffic, even though the road could be widened. "I was just
driving when the car appeared in front of me," said the teacher, who
had not driven that stretch of the A59 before. Arrested for causing
death by dangerous driving, she was fined £100 for lack of care and
attention instead. Christi, who was not expected to survive the night,
recovered.

Jesse Jackson was a front-seat passenger at another A59 turn-off where
there is no room for an error of judgment. Like the Lloyds, his wife
was waiting to turn right. Because of a momentary mistake, their car
started to move into the path of a lorry laden with bricks. In a
freakish accident, a brick sent flying by the truck's emergency stop
came through the sunroof and hit the middle-aged musician on the neck,
killing him instantly.

When I knocked at the home of Robyn Lloyd, it was the school holidays.
This was the perfect place for a childhood: the semidetached house is
one of many in Yorkshire that have a field behind the garden, in this
case full of calves, plus homes nearby with many playing children.
Over the threshold is a different story. Robyn was a characterful
creature who went everywhere in a pink fairy outfit, seeming wise
beyond her two years. Her parents separated two days before the
anniversary of the crash; the marriage was ending anyway, but the
death did huge damage. Jonathan Lloyd, Robyn's father, is a thoughtful
man with a sad, wry humour. But the scale of his loss is obvious, and
the effect on Robyn's mother, and the two other drivers, can hardly be
imagined.

Similarly, the widow of Jesse Jackson has moved, unable to live in the
house she shared with her husband; seeking her, I met close friends
who said she was starting to heal, but to approach her would do great
harm. I left her alone. The third death in the past three years was of
a biker, who collided with a car and died many weeks later.

Just three fatalities on our road in three years, I hear you say.
Well, for every fatal accident there are 10 that cause serious injury,
and as the living have more to say than the dead, it is time to meet
them. So let us take a break with Betty Hebden, behind the counter in
the cafe at the steam railway that takes tourists to Bolton Abbey. Is
this a bad road, then? Betty is the quiet sort, whose life serving tea
and scones does not bring her into contact with violence. Yet she
knows two people who have been badly damaged on our 19 miles of road,
with life-changing injuries that make you question if the survivor of
the crash is glad to be alive.

Paul Scott is a walking miracle. He should be dead. He broke his neck,
back and face — that's the short version — in a head-on crash at a
closing speed of 120mph. He was so shattered that if he laughs, which
is surprisingly often, he must remember not to shake a lot in case his
head, which is held in place by a bolt, falls off. Yet he has made
remarkable progress, going from someone who appeared to be dead to one
who, in the safety of his home, can walk unaided. Doctors use him as
an example of what can be achieved, to the extent that Paul says
Hello! magazine offered £75,000 for his story. He declined, telling it
here without payment to publicise the risks of A-roads.

There were portents. Once, on a trip into Harrogate, the young
petrol-station manager told a friend to slow down for a narrow,
winding section of the A59. The driver said he knew the road, only to
hit a cliff on the right and bounce into the crash barrier on the
left, ending up balanced on the edge with the back-seat passengers not
daring to move in case the car tipped over. Paul's sister, Fiona,
witnessed a similar event: she was overtaken on the same stretch by a
driver who was unfamiliar with the road, rolled his car on the next
bend and finished up suspended over the gorge.

That's enough for one family, you might think. But one November night,
as Paul travelled home to Skipton, he met a young woman stationed at
RAF Menwith Hill, the US-run spy station that is the biggest village
in Britain not to appear on any road map. She was one of the 1,400 or
so linguists, engineers, mathematicians and other staff who live at
the base, using 23 giant "golf balls" and three satellite dishes to
monitor communications. The balls look eerily beautiful. But the
Americans use left-hand-drive vehicles shipped over from the US, and
at night in a rural area there is little to remind them they are not
at home. When they turn onto the A59 they need a sign reminding them
to drive on the left. There wasn't one.

Paul saw headlights coming towards him on the single carriageway; they
belonged to the young woman, on the wrong side of the road. She was
travelling at 60mph; so was he. It took 4½ hours to cut him out of his
Vauxhall Corsa and three months to get him off life support. She said
she was overtaking a lorry, but it was never traced.

At first he was not expected to live. Then he was predicted not to
talk properly or walk. But he bears no bitterness and is not easily
defeated. During that long first year, a rugby player was brought into
hospital with a broken thumb; don't worry, said Paul, you'll be all
right. The rugby player, facing surgery, forgot his troubles for a
moment to ask Paul what was wrong with him.

A passing nurse gave the list: "He's only broken his back, his face,
pelvis, arms, legs, ribs..." Not to mention the 4in of metal that
support his spine, the damaged main artery, the acid from an abscess
that has eaten into his heart and spinal cord.

His face was reconstructed brilliantly — the bones fragmented like
cornflakes when the skin was removed, but photographs suggest he is
actually more handsome than before. He is not the type to be
depressed: he cried only when told he would be blind. And he is
determined. When he found that life at the pace of other people was
too fast, he decided to be independent. "My brother-in-law was pushing
me around in a wheelchair," Paul explains.

"Only having partial sight in one eye, I'd go to a shop and if I
wanted to see something I'd say, can we just stop — oh, never mind.
Can I just have a look at — oh, never mind. I was being pushed so
fast, unbeknown to my brother-in-law I was missing everything in life,
being pushed in this chair. I thought: ********, I'm going to walk.
I'm sick of this. Medical fact says I can't, but I'll prove 'em
wrong."

It started with a few steps; now he walks without a stick. And the
big, manicured garden at his adapted bungalow is all his work. He
began by using a spoon, the only thing he could hold in his one good
hand, to turn the soil as he was wheeled around the garden. Today,
after asking surgeons to smash up and rebuild his hand to make it work
better, he does everything. All that troubles him (and it really does)
is that, with one eye, he cannot tell if he has cut the bushes
straight. What bothers the onlooker is that this attractive,
interesting man is lonely: he rarely goes out, and nobody visits other
than his family. His life ended on the A59. Even now, there is no sign
at the junction.

Paul Scott was a popular man who received 572 get-well cards. That's
572 people who knew to take extra care on our stretch of road. Even
so, the Mercedes of his ex-girlfriend's parents was in a side-on crash
at the same spot three months later. "It's a winding, hilly section of
road," says Paul. "And when you get up over the hill it's virtually
straight. People pick up speed, not realising that there are country
lanes jutting out. It starts to bend — that's when the damage
happens."

There — and on the three-lane sections. Britain is not alone in Europe
in having three-lane single carriageways on which overtaking traffic
can crash head on, and our Roman road through Yorkshire has prime
examples. The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who own 30,000 acres
around Bolton Abbey, were the first people to sign a petition this
summer calling for a cut in the 60mph limit at Beamsley Hill, a
three-lane section where outsiders, who do not know the risks
presented by junctions with minor roads, travel at up to 90mph. The
hill has a sign that reads Road Blocked: it is intended for winter
snows, and is supposed to be hidden for the rest of the year, but is
used mostly to warn of the wreckage of traffic.

Lisa Salmon was on her way to Skipton when she ran out of road on
another three-lane section of the A59. Overtaking a lorry that was
climbing a hill in the crawler lane, just as the road planners
intended, she must have missed the warning sign that the extra lane
was about to end. The journalist was nearly at the brow when suddenly
there was nowhere to go. The lorry was still to her left as the road
narrowed and she saw a refuse truck coming towards her. The truck
drove over her Citroèn ZX car. Like Paul Scott, she sustained terrible
injuries.

She lost her good eye — the law of perversity dictated that her left
eye, which had poorer vision, was undamaged — as her skull and face
shattered like the shell of an egg. She broke her shoulder, fractured
her neck, and snapped a leg in three places.Her brain and spinal cord
were found to be unharmed, and today her head is held together by 40
plates and screws. But there is good news. After having her forehead,
nose, eye orbits, cheekbones and jaw rebuilt, she has become a working
mother for the first time: one child, Conor, was born a year and three
weeks after the crash (impressive, given her injuries), but died in
hospital at the age of two days — an experience worse than the
accident. A second son, Joel, was born this year. Lisa's face still
shows enough damage to draw public attention; we put her in touch with
Paul Scott to see for herself what surgery can achieve.

Salmon admits she was a quick driver, and a careless one in that she
would use her phone on the road. But she was cautious when it came to
overtaking. And she was not a stranger. As Yorkshire bureau chief of
the Press Association, she lived 50 yards off the A59 and she had gone
along the 19 miles to Skipton several times. "I was paranoid about
overtaking," she says. "I never took risks. But when a lorry is
crawling up a hill, who wouldn't overtake when there are two lanes?
Any other driver would have got squashed, just like I did. It's
completely ludicrous that we can have a road layout like that." She is
right. Go there today and you will notice that under the new, safer
road markings lies the ghostly image of the arrows that warned her in
2001 that her lane was coming to an end. They are at the brow of the
hill and, even more amazing, there is a turn-off just beyond it, where
a family like the Lloyds could be waiting. The old design is shocking
to contemplate.

She has no memory of the impact, but it must be lodged in her brain:
as a passenger, she is plagued by the sensation that something is
about to come through the windscreen. "What happened to me would have
happened to anyone," she says. "And probably will happen to someone
again."

There have been no flowers on the A59 all summer. But if you want to
know how lasting is the personal wreckage of a crash, a clue can still
be found. Leave the route at the junction with the A65 and go east for
30 seconds. There, on a bad bend where the concrete fence posts have
been renewed several times, you will see fresh flowers. It does not
matter when you make the journey: the blooms, marking the death of a
young builder called Danny Stanfield, will be there. They have been
replaced every second Sunday for the past 10 years. The only time
Andrew Stanfield, Danny's father, faltered in this tribute was when he
could not bear to see that for the third time a car had left the road
at the spot, crashing through the flowers. That there is still no
cheap, energy-absorbing metal rail on the bend is a source of wonder.

Danny, the father of a toddler, was a playful young man, given to
lifting his mother off her feet for a kiss, or moving her carefully
placed ornaments when her back was turned. His wife has remarried and
tries to get on with her life. His parents and sisters, however, are
so affected by the death that at times, even though they have children
of their own, they have not wanted to carry on. Ten years later, his
mother is too distressed to join the rest of the family for our
interview. "Friends of mine eventually get round to the subject," says
Andrew Stanfield, a factory worker who retires in November. "They say,
'How long do you think you'll take flowers there?' As long as I'm
alive I'll take flowers. That's where Danny died; that's where I want
to go." Lesley, one of Danny's sisters, understands. "I feel it when
I'm going to the airport," she says. "I'm churning.

I think you think you're leaving him behind." Andrea,his other sister,
agrees: each visits the crash site immediately before a holiday, a
preoccupation their young children do not understand.

None of this needs explaining to a group called Scard (Support & Care
after Road Death & Injury), set up by Carole Whittingham after her
son, Steven, was hit by a stolen car. This Yorkshire mother wanted
proper penalties for people who kill with a vehicle, but as word of
her spread, the campaign evolved into a national charity that helps
anybody who needs it. Every volunteer on its helpline has lost a loved
one on the roads. Members visit schools and young offenders to bring
home the consequences of a crash, accompany families to court and help
to train the police in good practice when dealing with the aftermath.

They could start with the Ministry of Defence police at Menwith Hill.
These are the people, while on a night patrol looking for peace
protesters, who ran over Kenneth Campbell just off the A59. The
coroner concluded that the young chef, who was walking home from a
barbecue, must have lain down in the road. His family does not accept
this. Challenging the verdict is difficult, however. The only
witnesses to the accident, in a car coming the other way, were sent on
without their names being taken. Not only did the police fail to
preserve the crash scene, for which they have been criticised by the
Police Complaints Authority, but for three years the Ministry of
Defence has refused to give the family a copy of the police
investigation report, which is normally made available for a fee. Only
when The Sunday Times asked questions during the research for this
article did the ministry say it would reconsider. Particularly hurtful
to the family is that, when traced, one of the witnesses turned out to
know Kenneth; had he stayed around, he could have alerted the family
in time for them to spend some last moments with their dying son.

By the end of next week, nine people who are reading these words will
be dead. That's nine Sunday Times readers killed on the roads, not the
number from the population as a whole. What lies in wait for their
families? Mandy Fox Roberts, whose daughter Hadara was knocked down in
1997, says that if the injuries are very grave, it is best if the
reader dies before reaching hospital. Those are the lucky families.

Fox Roberts campaigned for speed cameras and central refuges near her
home in West Yorkshire, to the south of the A59, to make crossing the
road safer. Until Hadara tipped the balance, the number of dead was
deemed inadequate. The day the scales shifted, Fox Roberts was on the
scene within minutes: Hadara, 12, who had started a paper round to buy
the designer trainers and jogging bottoms her family could not afford,
was lying in the road having fits, with fluid flowing out of her ears.
Maternal instinct said she was going to die, so Fox Roberts lay in the
road beside her, stroking her daughter's cheek, saying, 'You can go to
your nanny now' — only to be gripped by a conflicting impulse, leading
her to plead with Hadara to stay alive. She then went through a
complex series of adjustments as she lay with her daughter in the
road. "I remember saying, 'It's all right, Hadara. Nanny'll look after
you.' Because she was very close to my mum. Then I thought, 'Hang on.
My mum died six years ago. I've got to accept this,' because I'd never
accepted before that my mum had gone. But I had to do it, so it was
like losing two people at the same time. If I didn't, who would look
after Hadara? And I was fighting, 'Hadara, come on, you can beat
this.' Then, 'No, Hadara, you can't. Go in peace, don't suffer any
more.'"

When the police tried to prevent Fox Roberts getting into the
ambulance, she took a swing at the officer; nobody was going to stop
her travelling with her child. Because the girl was alive on arrival
at hospital, the law required that her life was supported for 72
hours. "Try to imagine the beep, beep, beep of these machines for 72
hours," this mother says. "All you want is to have a last few hours in
peace, to go on the bed and have a cuddle. But we couldn't get
anywhere near her. There were tubes and wires everywhere. We could
stroke her right foot." Then the days and nights end and you are free
to bury your daughter.

Seven years later, Hadara is missed outside her nuclear family; her
cousins still take her on holiday to Majorca, in the form of a
photograph on their hotel dressing table. To her mother she remains
12, but to the cousins she is 19, just as they are.

Unlike hospitals, where the prospect of paying compensation leads to a
defensive style of work, the county councils that are responsible for
most of our roads are rarely sued. There is a difference, of course.
The people who make mistakes in hospitals are not the patients. On the
roads, the drivers make the errors themselves.

But it is not that simple. Some roads have far more accidents than
others. And the fact that we overlook local authorities when
apportioning blame for a crash means that a powerful incentive to
improve bad roads is just not there. With 37,215 people killed or
seriously injured on the roads in 2003, Britain has one of the best
safety records in the world. But this is thanks to the high proportion
of our driving that is done on motorways. The excellence of motorways
masks the poorer performance of other roads in the statistics, and it
is on busy single-carriageway roads such as the A59 that six of our
nine Sunday Times readers are going to die.

Thanks to its geography, Sweden does not have the luxury of a big
motorway network, and to improve its overall record the country has
been forced to alter ordinary roads. The town of Trollhattan, for
example, irritated its 53,000 residents with two years of disruption
for a redesign. In the year after the changes, not one person died in
an accident in or near the town.

We can afford to do the same. In a survey of 27 councils published in
November 2002, carried out by the County Surveyors' Society and the AA
Foundation for Road Safety Research, nearly half the councils
questioned put the price of road-safety measures per life saved at
less than £50,000, with almost all saying "less than £100,000". In
comparison, Department for Transport figures put the cost of a
fatality at £1,249,890, and that of a serious injury at £140,450. A
crash barrier, of the sort that is missing where Danny Stanfield died,
is £100,000 per kilometre (less for longer stretches) — an important
figure when 500 people a year are killed by hitting trees. White lines
are £1 per metre; safety improvements on a bend (anti-skid surface,
improved signs, new road markings), £10,000. To convert a four-way
junction into a large roundabout costs £500,000, but no such
extravagance was necessary to save Robyn Lloyd: a wider road would
have done the trick. This is not to suggest that Britain's road
planners fail to do their best for our safety. But a pedestrian refuge
to keep Hadara Fox alive would have cost £2,000.

Our section of the A59 had 43 fatal and serious accidents in the three
years of the study. To bring this back to the average accident rate,
which is a realistic target — you cannot make a twisting tourist route
into a four-star design — would cost about £3m. At the average for
routes studied by EuroRAP, the number of fatal and serious accidents
would fall to 24. In other words, Paul Scott would still be
housebound. But Lisa Salmon would have got away with it, and Robyn
Lloyd would still be alive.
We asked North Yorkshire county council about the A59, but it did not
respond. Perhaps Jonathan Lloyd should speak for the council instead.
He is an A59 commuter; he has seen a crash every two months for the
past three years, apart from the time spent recovering from his own
broken bones in the accident that killed his daughter. On the Tuesday
before we met him, he was waiting at the scene of a head-on crash just
where Jesse Jackson died, and even as he waited he had to move out of
the way of a lorry that was out of control.

The council has made some improvements, he says, pointing out the
high-friction surface at one bend. But then he draws attention to a
junction with a ludicrous layout, where side impacts are a certainty.
As soon as he explains what he means, the dangers become obvious — but
they are far from evident to a motorist approaching the junction at
60mph, and sure enough, we are nearly involved in such an accident
ourselves minutes later. If North Yorkshire county council would like
to know about the site, I am sure that Lloyd would tell them.

One afternoon I drive the A59. At 50mph, heading towards the ravine
section, I am a rolling roadblock for traffic. Those behind want to go
faster, but writing about safety makes you see potential accidents,
and 50 seems fast enough to me. A 4x4 overtakes, and just gets past
before a lorry coming the other way. Next to overtake is a Renault
Clio carrying three young men. The Renault, now in front, brakes
suddenly for that A59 speciality, a junction with a minor road. I
brake too. Behind me, a Vauxhall Astra, also carrying three people,
swerves as it brakes. Which was more important here, the road or the
driver? If you are dead, it does not really matter. But there is no
sudden thunderclap today; nobody crashes, and nobody is hurt. Just
give it time.


DANGER ZONE

1. Two-year-old Robyn Lloyd was killed when her father's car was hit
from behind as he waited to leave the A59.

2. The three-lane section where Lisa Salmon nearly died now has safer
markings, but you can just see the old ones that made her crash
inevitable.

3. The start of Beamsley Hill, where a three-lane single carriageway
holds many dangers in two miles. Traffic sits stationary in the centre
waiting to turn right.

4. A bend on Beamsley Hill where uphill traffic (going east) cannot
see fast-moving downhill traffic. Risk of high-speed head-on crash.

5. A narrow, twisting 'ravine' section creates obvious dangers.

6. Kenneth Campbell was killed to the north of*a junction, where a bad
design invites a collision.

7. Jesse Jackson died in a freak accident. Jonathan Lloyd (father of
Robyn, see 1) has seen a crash on the same* route every two months.

8. The invitingly fast straight where Paul Scott crashed head-on at a
closing speed of 120mph has hidden dips and turn-offs.


To learn more about Scard, telephone 0845 123 5541 or 0845 123 5543.
The helpline, for the bereaved and injured only, is 0845 123 5542


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...266968,00.html

On 26 Sep 2004 05:11:11 -0700, (Sufaud) wrote in
message :

accidents over three years. Nine of our readers are condemned to die
by the end of next week on roads just like it. Yet a few hundred
^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
thousand pounds would save some of those lives and many more to come.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Actually "tomorrow" and "slowing down a bit".

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

In ,
Just zis Guy, you know? typed:
On 26 Sep 2004 05:11:11 -0700, (Sufaud) wrote in
message :

accidents over three years. Nine of our readers are condemned to die
by the end of next week on roads just like it. Yet a few hundred
^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
thousand pounds would save some of those lives and many more to come.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Actually "tomorrow" and "slowing down a bit".

They meant 9 Sunday Times readers, not 9 Britons.

I agree about the "slowing down a bit", but it seems that part of the
campaign is for roads that are painted with enough white to say "slow down a
bit"

A

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

On 26 Sep 2004 05:11:11 -0700, (Sufaud) wrote in
message :

accidents over three years. Nine of our readers are condemned to die
by the end of next week on roads just like it. Yet a few hundred
^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
thousand pounds would save some of those lives and many more to come.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Actually "tomorrow" and "slowing down a bit".

Indeed. and a URL would have done too.

--
Andy Hewitt ** FAF#1, (Ex-OSOS#5) - FJ1200 ABS
Honda Civic 16v: Windows free zone (Mac G5 Dual Processor)
http://www.thehewitts.plus.com - now online

Sufaud wrote:

Sunday Times (London)
September 26, 2004

Death row

The A59 is Britain's most dangerous road, with 43 fatal or serious
accidents over three years. Nine of our readers are condemned to die
by the end of next week on roads just like it. Yet a few hundred
thousand pounds would save some of those lives and many more to come.

How many of them were bikers with a deathwish? Most of the "black"
roads in the AA road atlas's risk map are those frequented by
motorcyclists out for a thrill.

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 16:41:16 +0100, "Ambrose Nankivell"
wrote in message
:

I agree about the "slowing down a bit", but it seems that part of the
campaign is for roads that are painted with enough white to say "slow down a
bit"

Past experience indicates that removing the paint and making them
think for themselves works better. Along with nicking them when they
drive like ****s.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:16:56 +0100, Zog The Undeniable
wrote in message 4156f987.0@entanet:

The A59 is Britain's most dangerous road

How many of them were bikers with a deathwish? Most of the "black"
roads in the AA road atlas's risk map are those frequented by
motorcyclists out for a thrill.

No idea, but I have driven the A59 a Several of times and lived to
tell the tale. Regular readers may be able to guess my patent
technique for this, but for completeness it was:

Notice that the road is a bit iffy
Slow down.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

No idea, but I have driven the A59 a Several of times and lived to
tell the tale. Regular readers may be able to guess my patent
technique for this, but for completeness it was:

Notice that the road is a bit iffy
Slow down.


So its all your fault Guy. Everyone keeps going fast so they don't
infringe your patented technique.

Tony

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:34:37 +0100, Tony Raven
wrote in message :

So its all your fault Guy. Everyone keeps going fast so they don't
infringe your patented technique.

No, no, you've got it all wrong - they are driving as fast as humanly
possible in the certain knowledge that this is the SafeSpeed for the
road :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Notice that the road is a bit iffy
Slow down.

This is disgracefully selfish, since you will delay those drivers whose
skill and whose car may greatly outperform those of normal people.They will
then be forced to overtake at excessive speed and in appallingly dangerous
situations.
No, the only solution is to keep speeding up until the car behind drops back
to a distance that you feel is not threatening.After all , if you do hit
someone it is highly unlikely that it will be proven that you were speeding
or driving carelessly, and even then, a suitable demonstration of remorse
will attract much sympathy from the court.
If you are a lady you may consider pulling over to allow the Audis to
proceed at their enhanced velocity, as seems to be recommended in the
highway code. Indeed the A9 carries many notices to this effect, based on
the idea that the quicker the ton uppers get to Aviemor through the snow the
safer the road will be.

TerryJ