The roads to hell?
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Ask anyone if they know a dangerous road and you’ll just have to stand and listen. Everyone has an opinion. But where are the UK’s most dangerous roads, and how can you avoid becoming a statistic? CM opened the floodgates and nearly got washed away
In most walks of life the professionals and the amateurs are usually easily identifiable and they don’t work in the same environment. If you went to have your hip replaced, you wouldn’t expect to see your ruddy-faced local butcher sharpening his knife as they wheeled you into theatre. Driving is different. The quietly professional types, be they in trucks, cars or on bikes, are working among a mixed-ability class. From dear aunty Doris who’s never had an accident (she’s seen plenty), to Carlos Fandango with his extra wide wheels. It is, as they say, hell out there.
To cope with this disparate group, the design and layout of roads and the siting of the various furniture they need – signs, lighting, barriers and the like – should be aimed at helping the least competent drivers to stay out of trouble. It seems this is not always so. Road Safety Foundation (RSF) director Dr Joanne Hill says: “Too often we pay for emergency services, hospitals and care for those disabled by highway accidents rather than taking easy steps to put road design faults right.” The foundation is the British arm of the European Road Assessment Programme, the sister organisation of EuroNCAP. It examined accident data relating to roads across Britain. Among its conclusions were that single carriageway roads carry six times the risk of motorways and twice that of dual carriageways, and that one-in-four fatal or serious crashes on A-roads or motorways involves a motorcyclist. However, it’s not all black. Progress can be made where there is the will, a brain and a budget. The most improved road was named as the A40 between Llandovery and Carmarthen. Redesigned junctions and markings, along with resurfacing with high friction, anti-skid treatments, saw the number of serious accidents fall from 27 between 2003 and 2005 to just seven in the following three years.
Dr Hill says such simple, well-planned engineering measures were relatively inexpensive. They don’t involve broken bones and lost lives either.
Developing product safety
In the 70s, some pioneering work was done by Volvo’s accident investigation department in Gothenburg, Sweden. They attended the scene of serious road traffic accidents where a Volvo truck or car was involved. The data they gathered not only helped them to develop their product safety, they also made valuable recommendations to the highways engineers.
Much of it is obvious today, but back then, hungry lamp posts were still sited on the outside of bends just waiting for an errant vehicle to eat, and safety barriers were more like Chobham armour with all the deformation being endured by the vehicle and occupants.
That learning curve should continue into infinity, but CM is often exasperated to still see road furniture sited with murderous incompetence.
As far as the vocational road user goes, we posted a question on the UK Professional Drivers Forum of TruckNetUK to garner the view of those who are out at the sharp end of the issue. Their least favourite roads flooded in, but three issues seemed to emerge: junction design; traffic management at road works; and the lack of understanding of other road users were the top three complaints. Although, as TruckNet’s ‘Wheel Nut’ said: “It isn’t the roads that are dangerous, it is the pillocks who use them.” Another frequent comment included that from ‘Bald Bloke’, who felt that the A-road single carriageway limit of 40mph for trucks and 60mph for cars is “a recipe for a serious smash” , and we’re inclined to agree with him.
Road junctions were the biggest moan from TruckNet, with motorways coming high up the chart. With all the space available in motorway construction, you might think it would be easy to create a safe layout. Among dozens named, the M4/M5 junction was cited as a mess with lanes slicing across each other and rapid decisions need making in too short a distance. Roadworks were seen by truck drivers as a killing zone with ‘zip merging’ a dangerous feature for drivers with low cognitive ability. Also cited was insufficient space for contra-flowed traffic to co-exist safely, even at lower speeds.
Sadly, the word motorcyclist crops up far too often in any road safety report, and frequently with the word ‘dead’ in the same sentence. They are, by a country mile, the most vulnerable of motorised road users. Millions of the UK’s car drivers are category-A licence holders and no more. All truck drivers are, however, car drivers too, and plenty of them ride bikes as well.
An awareness of what other road users are likely to do and why, only really arrives with the relevant licence. So, don’t rail against it, adopt the biker’s mantra and treat every other road user as a dangerous idiot. As for the most lethal roads, there are quite a few lists around. The RSF findings named the top 10 as mostly single-carriageway A-roads, with nine of them in northern England. Covering 28,000 miles of A-roads and motorways in the LJK, it concluded that while on average Scotland has the highest-risk highways, northern England stacked up the most coffins. Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire were singled out, and the notorious A537 Macclesfield to Buxton ‘Cat & Fiddle’ road, took the unenviable top spot, with mostly bikers in the ditch. The A14 that tramps north-east out of the capital with Felixstowe-bound containers has a notorious reputation and is frequently closed with the ominous blue sheets draped over mangled vehicles. It’s regular fodder for the BBC’s Look East local news, but the message doesn’t seem to have sunk in with the highways planners yet.
But what is to blame?
Industry associations have a view too. Their concerns revolve around government spending as well as poor design. The Freight Transport Association head of road network management policy Malcolm Bingham observes: “One of our members’ main concerns is spending on roads, in that with reduced funds, the road infrastructure should be maintained as a priority and any necessary cuts should be made to new projects. One area that has been highlighted by the Campaign for Safe Road Design is the cost benefit of building roads to safer design criteria.” While we would all agree that deep potholes and collapsed ironwork is a safety issue that needs sorting, Chrys Rampley, infrastructure manager at the Road Haulage Association (RHA), also points the finger squarely at road design and roadside safety. “The roadside environment is a contributing factor in up to 30% of crashes,” she says.
The RHA has been campaigning for the A14/M1/M6 junction to be improved as it is considered to be extremely dangerous, often resulting in queuing on the motorway carriageway. Rampley adds: “The A14 is a dangerous road. The on-slips are too short causing problems for HGVs and motorists alike.” On the subject of spending, she makes a cogent point: “As the roads’ budget becomes tighter, emphasis must be on saving lives with less money, which means prioritising treatment of the highest-risk routes most likely to benefit from low-cost, high-return counter measures. Even something as simple as a pot of paint can save lives.” Scotland and Northern Ireland RHA director Phil Flanders gave evidence related to speed limits at a hearing of the Scotland Bill Committee on 1 February. He confirmed that the RHA favoured the Scottish Parliament having the power to set its own speed limits. He said most Scottish roads are A-class single carriageways and that “the RHA would welcome the increasing of the speed limit for trucks on single carriageways from 40mph to 50mph” .
CM would certainly back that call, and not just for north of the border either. ■