Another driver is hart on killer hill
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II North Yorkshire Police are warning hauliers using a notoriously dangerous stretch of the A169 to be extra vigilant after a driver was nearly killed last week only 400 yards from the site of a fatal accident two weeks earlier.
Driver Nick Scouse leapt from his truck seconds before it crashed into a stone stable on the steep Blue Bank Hill near Sleights. He sustained critical head and leg injuries but is said to be improving in Middlesbrough General Hospital this week, The steep and winding road has caused four serious truck accidents since last November and Whitby police have logged 14 pages of accidents along the winding road's 20% (I-in.5) gradients since January 1995.
"It continues to be a concern for us and residents," a police spokesman says. "There's noth.
ing anyone can do." They were shaken by the death of tanker driver Shaun Whitehouse who was trapped in his cab with multiple injuries after his brick lorry cartwheeled into a field on 27 June.
Police are waiting for the results of a technical examination of Scouse's wrecked truck but its Doncaster-based owner G Earnshaw's says it was regularly serviced and well maintained.
The brakes of other trucks wrecked on Blue Bank Hill have also proved to have been in good condition before their accidents.
Residents are calling on the Highways Agency to build a second escape lane on the righthand side of the road for fear of a truck smashing into oncoming traffic.
One resident says he witnessed five accidents on the hill in one week.