Campaigners say the A47 desperately needs to be made safer and have written to the government to reinforce their case after eight deaths on the road in just 10 weeks.
Mustard video: Tragic deaths on Norfolk’s A47 show why road needs to be made safer, campaigners say
Dan Grimmer
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
9:20 PM
Campaigners who have been pressing for improvements to the A47 have called for the government to make money for the road available in next week’s budget, following eight deaths on the road in the space of just 10 weeks.
Campaigners who have been pressing for improvements to the A47 have called for the government to make money for the road available in next week’s budget, following eight deaths on the road in the space of just 10 weeks.
East Anglian political and business leaders recently launched the Gateway to Growth campaign to secure A47 upgrades, which they say could generate nearly 10,000 jobs, add £390m to the region’s economy and attract £800m of private investment.
But the campaign also emphasises how improvements to the road would improve safety, an issue which has become particularly pertinent following eight deaths on the A47 since Christmas Eve.
The latest tragedy happened on Saturday, when a mother and daughter from Dereham, aged 48 and 19, died when the Ford Ka they were travelling in was in a crash with a Mercedes CLX on the Dereham side of Hockering.
And that has prompted MPs and leaders to write to transport minister Stephen Hammond calling for money to improve the A47 to be included in next week’s budget.
Graham Plant, cabinet member for planning and transportation at Norfolk County Council and Andy Wood, chairman of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, wrote: “In addition to the very strong economic case to improve the A47, we should not forget the human cost of accidents along the road.
“Only this weekend, two more people died on the A47 in Norfolk, taking the death toll on the road in this county to eight in just 10 weeks.
“This spate of fatal road crashes underlines the case for the government to consider urgent investment in the route.
“Clearly we recognise these are challenging times for the country as a whole, but for the economic and safety reasons we have outlined, we believe the case for the A47 to be overwhelming and do hope there will be some positive news on the A47 in the budget announcement next week.”
In November, MPs, Norfolk County Council, the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership and other campaigners re-launched the A47 Alliance and launched a united drive, with the backing of the EDP, to convince the government of the overwhelming business case for the upgrade.
The 14 improvements being pushed for by the A47 Alliance include dualling the Acle Straight, creating a third river crossing at Great Yarmouth, and building an East Winch/Middleton bypass in the west.
Hopes were raised when Mr Hammond said the government would in 2013 seriously consider the case to fund improvements and campaigners hope there could be an announcement of money the scheme could tap into in Wednesday’s budget.
Mr Plant said: “This is a really difficult time for the families of the people involved, who have lost their loved ones and we don’t want any more deaths on that road.
“The accident record is not a good one and it seems to be getting worse. But at the moment we do not know whether this latest tragedy is because of the road, the weather or the driving. We won’t know that until the investigations have been carried out.”
George Freeman, Mid Norfolk MP, has also written to Mr Hammond asking for a meeting to discuss the “growing public concern” over the roads safety.
In his letter, he refers to the latest double tragedy on the road and said: “I understand that you are exceptionally busy, and I am very encouraged by the leadership and commitment you have shown to improving the A47 thus far, but if we could arrange for a very brief meeting to discuss the growing public concern at the safety of this road, and any opportunities for ‘fast tracking’ work on the black spots, I would be very grateful.
“It is important that our communities and constituencies see that we are doing everything we can to resolve these issues.”
Fellow MPs have also called on the government to make money available when George Osborne announces the budget next Wednesday.
Keith Simpson, Broadland MP, said: “When you talk to the police, the issue for them is the intermittent stretches where it goes from dual to single carriageway, but we should not underestimate that the drivers can be responsible as well.
“When we had our meeting with Mr Hammond he was giving us positive signals based upon the business case the county council had put forward based upon the current budgets.
“Anything in next week’s budget would be very welcome, but people need to bear in mind that even if money is forthcoming it might not necessarily mean work can be done straight away at the location where the latest tragedy has taken place.”
Elizabeth Truss, MP for South West Norfolk, said she was “extremely saddened” to hear of the further loss of life on the road at the weekend and said it was vital that such an important route was made “fit for purpose”.
He said: “I have been calling on the government for investment to ensure the road can cope safely with the volume of traffic.
“The route provides vital links from the coast to the city of Peterborough and beyond, sustaining both jobs and tourism.
“If the chancellor commits funds to upgrade the route this will drive growth, encourage greater employment opportunities and really place Norfolk on the map.
“The improvements to the A11 are well underway and already business recognises the benefits this will bring. Norfolk is a global player with our science park, off shore wind farms, hi tech engineering companies and farming.
“Therefore the county should have infrastructure to compete on the international stage. I hope the chancellor puts in place proposals that will facilitate even greater development of these industries and support for attracting more talented individuals into the work place in Norfolk.”
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50 comments
You can't make roads (or cars either) safer. You can only make them easier to use, and easier to go faster, easier to drive using a mobile phone instead of watching the road and easier to think you are in a "safe" cocoon. Only drivers can be made safer.
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expat
Friday, March 15, 2013
Bad driving does seem to be worse in Norfolk and Suffolk, i drive all over the country and have to say that i see far more basic errors locally. We are the only region that cannot go "round" roundabouts, we have to go across them from inside lane to outside lane and back to inside lane. Causing most of our roundabouts that were originally designed to have 2 lanes entering and leaving, are now being hatch marked to only allow one car at a time. If we cannot get the basics right, what chance do we have on our "big roads" like the A47
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DaveG
Thursday, March 14, 2013
I get sick to death with people banging on about speed and unsafe roads causing accidents. It's stupidity, laziness and bad driving that causes accidents. The countless times I've travelled (especially on the A47) to see people driving on parking lights (most of which you see the vehicle before the lights) or no lights at all in bad visibility - be it fog, rain or snow. Then there's tailgating - cars and especially lorries stuck to close to the vehicle in front, they have no chance to stop should that vehicle brake hard. Signaling incorrectly on roundabouts so that cars pull out in front of them because they've signaled too early. You only have to stand by the mini roundabout by Dereham Library for a couple of minutes to see that the majority of people coming up from Moorgate and taking the third exit miss out the roundabout altogether because they're simply too bloody lazy to drive round it correctly. Until drivers in general accept driving as something serious to think about beyond the bonnet of the car and learn to read the roads, accidents will continue to happen. You don't have to drive slow to be a good driver, you have to think about what you're doing.
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Yellow Peril
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Norfolk and Good: anyone who feels 'encouraged' to overtake dangerously should have his licence taken away .. he shouldn't be on the road.
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Patrick
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
> "holding up miles of traffic which encourages dangerous overtaking." Nonsense! Nobody 'encourages dangerous overtaking'. Overtaking is a personal choice for which you alone have responsibility. Like so many things nowadays, we don't want to take the blame we want it to be someone else's fault. Cigarettes don't kill - if you choose to smoke them you increase the risk of early death. Alcohol doesn't cause problems: abuse of it, beyond your limits may do ... But these are your choice, you are not forced to drink and smoke.
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Patrick
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
People keep going on about unsafe roads, no such thing. Drivers make unsafe roads by driving to fast and taking chances when overtaking. Using mobile phones. I f you driver with in the law the roads are safe
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Derek McDonald
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
I wrote to Tesco once to ask them why their lorries insisted on driving so slowly and holding up miles of traffic which encourages dangerous overtaking. I received a very sharp reply pointing out that HGVs were limited to 40mph on single carriageways and that I would know this if I cared to read the Highway Code. I sent a further letter saying that I already knew this, and if THEY cared to read the Highway Code, section 169, they would realise that their drivers were breaking the law.... "Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass."..... Needless to say, they have never replied to my second letter. If you ever see a Tesco truck driving at 40mph holding up more than 5 vehicles and it drives past a layby, please report it to the Police!
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Norfolk and Good
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
ROLF - I totally agree with you that Tesco lorries are the most frustrating vehicles on the roads these days. I really lse the will to live when I get stuck in a mile-long queue doing about 39mph. HOWEVER, the speed limit for LGVs on single carriageway roads is a ridiculous 40mph. This limit was set many years ago when lorries had cable brakes, no power steering and very few safety devices. Modern trucks are quite safe to be driven at 60mph and most do this. If all vehicles travelled at 60mh there would be far less overtaking and fewer accidents.
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Citizen of EUSSR
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
No one can fail to be moved by the dreadful loss of life, but roads alone are not dangerous; it is how you drive that determines whether you make a journey safely. Looking at some of the driving I see every day on my way to work, I am amazed that there are not more accidents. Main problems are too fast, too close & too aggressive. Followed by not looking, not indicating and still many people on the phone while they are driving. I would also add that the EDP are doing a pretty poor job of providing up to date news. They have been rehashing and reprinting the same news and pictures of these various accidents since Saturday!
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Labratone
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
the trouble is we keep building more houses and more houses means more people, more cars on the road and unfortunatley more accidents. Norfolk is no longer a sleepy little backwater the planners have seen to that.
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caleb
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
These MPs can shout it from the rooftops but unless its followed by action the words are not only pointless but an insult to those who have already lost lives on this stretch of road.
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weareyellows49
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Congratulations Norton on ruining another news story. Impersonating another individual on here is a banning offence , as i have pointed out to the moderator. Now go to bed .
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LARSON.E. WHIPSNADE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Keith Gerrard ? Or is it John Norton , trying to pass himself off as him again. Either way , it is libellous , drunken rubbish. Try taking more water with it.
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LARSON.E. WHIPSNADE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
These MPs are never slow to cash in on a tragedy, they are despicable.
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Police Commissioner ???
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Those who kill on our roads through their fault should be banned from driving FOR LIFE, who will be the first judge to speak such sentence? This sole measure would bring down casualty rates and make drink drivers think thrice before attempting fate.
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ingo wagenknecht
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
People travelling towards Norwich invariably fight to overtake other vehicles on the dual carriageway I order to get to the single lane carriageway and therefore compromise anyone travelling towards Dereham by being in the totally wrong section of the road thus . I have had people overtake me in the chevrons and just get back in time and causing oncoming traffic to brake violently . Ideally the centre barrier should extend onto the single carriage way section. So sad to see people killed in this tragic manner and usually through no fault of their own.
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MIKEJ
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
There were 2 deaths in the last week that were on the A47. 3 fatalities on other roads, Heveningham and Dersingham .. Are you saying, DR, that we must upgrade those roads to dual carriageway or motorway .. and looking back only a few weeks, how dangerous do you rate Magpie Road? What improvements do you suggest there? Cajun: statistically single carriageway roads may have more accidents on them, but that implies that drivers are less careful there, or if a driver makes an error of judgement the consequences are worse - still not that roads are inherently dangerous.
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Patrick
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
It is despicable for an elected member of parliament, seeing his party suffering from infighting and bad leadership, using these death, for whatever reasons they have occurred, bad driving or bad roads, to call for improvements just as a County election is to commence. The A 47 and many other roads could be made safer, so why did our MP's, elected since 2010, wait this long before making these urgent noises?
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ingo wagenknecht
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Lots of interesting comments. There are many roads in Norfolk in far worse condition than the A47. I do not drive along the road very often but with a small van I generally stick to 50mph and am surprised at the number of cars and even high roof lwb vans that go past at up to 80 mph or more. IMO speed is one cause of many accidents and driving without due care for others and the roadweather conditions is another. My son, 19 yrs old drives a 65 ft refrigerated artic every week and has said he is amazed at the risks some drivers take to pass him. Trucks are limited to 40 on single carriageway, 50 on dual and 60 on motorways.
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Christopher Neave
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
@ROLF and whilst we are on the subject of bad driving, I bet alot of us have seen bad driving from the emergency services, there is a red mist that appears when they are on the way to a call, their priority is to get to the call as quick as possible, but are sometimes oblivious to their surroundings and the vehicles around them. I have seen several near misses with ambulances one of which was overtaking in thick fog approaching the apex of a hill.. and another overtaking a que of traffic in the face of oncoming traffic and they had no where to go..
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Footyboy16
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
There were 2 deaths in the last week that were on the A47. 3 fatalities on other roads, Heveningham and Dersingham .. Are you saying, DR, that we must upgrade those roads to dual carriageway or motorway .. and looking back only a few weeks, how dangerous do you rate Magpie Road? What improvements do you suggest there? Cajun: statistically single carriageway roads may have more accidents on them, but that implies that drivers are less careful there, or if a driver makes an error of judgement the consequences are worse - still not that roads are inherently dangerous.
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Patrick
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
@ROLF Firstly Lorries are supposed to travel at 40mph on single carriageway roads, but Tesco;s used to have a policy that their lorries speeds are monitored in live time and if they get to their delivery points early they are penalised and it may be the same for all supermarket lorries. Secondly why is it that a Coach carrying 52 passengers on board can come steaming past you in the outside lane? doing more than the speed of a lorry? interesting obviously the laws of the road don't care about the safety of coach passengers than a lorry load of supermarket supplies.. what do you think ROLF ??
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Footyboy16
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
BTW has anyone else noticed Elizabeth Truss's gender change?
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Thoreauwasright
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
No doubt that bad driving decisions generally result in an accident, but it can't be overlooked that single-lane roadways are best kept to residential subdivisions. Delete single-lanes, especially on roadways that are subject to speedy and high volume traffic. Lives are needlessly being lost; there are just as many reports of accidents and deaths on the A47 as there are muggings on Prince of Wales Road... I bet that if an MP lost a family member on the A47, there would be motions for roadway improvements immediately !!!!
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Cajun
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Something that I find most interesting about DR's comments - it's almost all the fault of the roads, roads we must improve etc etc ... yet DR makes constant reference to "at least one of recent accidents has been the victim of the bad driving of another" and "when a fool in a big Audi comes at you at speed ,impatient at being stuck behind a convoy.." & "one gets a fool overtaking and cutting in " This is all about BAD DRIVING... don't you see that, DR? Impatience on the roads is dangerous driving, not dangerous road. Read the road, read the traffic, be aware and as TwR says 'don't put yourself in a dangerous situation'. Ok, so you may not have control over someone else's driving, but they do. Yes, we ALL need to drive safely! Jackie Warby, I thank you for your courageous and pertinent comment. George Ezekial- so right, a neat summary. Too many people drive and get away with it! We must all drive safely. It's the ONLY way to reduce RT incidents.
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Patrick
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The main point for any road if the surface is good ... Is the way people drive and not the road... As for a 3rd great Yarmouth river crossing... Why..?.. The place is in such a low ebb of business with over 20 shops closed... And BHS not even having the heating on when I last went in... The chip stalls even giving free sauces with chips to drum up business.... Dualing the acle road has to be justified in cost terms, to how much business there is in retail terms... Many People no longer shop in great Yarmouth now.. Even the markets stalls are reducing ... Safety of driving in the main problem... Bad driving we all encounter it causes most deaths not the road....
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Lionel
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Hi-jacking of a genuinely tragic news story by EDP to promote some worthless MPs shows why my earlier comment had to be made safe (censored), I say.
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Mr Cameron Isaliar
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The design of a road, as Daisy Roots has implied, can influence the incident frequency on any given kilometre of road. Yet if the drivers supposedly in control of these vehicles were to drive to the prevailing conditions then there would be far fewer road traffic incidents and the Evening News would have to report more businesses opening or stocking new lines.
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George Ezekial
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
@ ROLF - As you are obviously unaware,as are many people, the legal limit for a HGV is 40mph on an A road, this is something I think should be reassessed due to this being set in the 70's and alot has changed since then, but as people are more and more impatient they are not willing to sit behind these lorries and overtake, therefore taking risks! My deepest sympathy to all the families who have lost loved ones in the past 10 weeks and in rta's on these roads.
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Kirdaz
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
well now! firstly i'm not the first patrick here today! call me patrick02 if you like! @ Rolf. why do many HGV'S travel at that "slow"speed? it's simple Rolf! because that is the maximum speed for a vehicle of that size and weight driving on an A class road. (did you know that little titbit of information is freely available in the highway code book? it's a great read! you should try it sometime!) when you're being actively tracked, you keep to the rules of the road!
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patrick
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
@ ROLF - As you are obviously unaware,as are many people, the legal limit for a HGV is 40mph on an A road, this is something I think should be reassessed due to this being set in the 70's and alot has changed since then, but as people are more and more impatient they are not willing to sit behind these lorries and overtake, therefore taking risks! My deepest sympathy to all the families who have lost loved ones in the past 10 weeks and in rta's on these roads.
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Kirdaz
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The volume of traffic on the A47 has increased alarmingly over the last 25 years, and save for the construction of short stretches of dual carriageway around Norwich and Dereham and a fly-over at Lynn, there has been precious little done to acknowledge this. A more recent development, arising from public spending cuts, is the dramatically reduced presence of speed camera vans and marked police patrol vehicles. Once a regular feature on this road, their disappearance has no doubt come to the attention of many road users, subconsciously or otherwise giving the green light to a relaxation in driving standards. Consider the way police run targeted operations aimed at taking suspected burglars, car thieves, and drug dealers off our streets, and then ask yourself why is it on our roads there isn’t a comparable approach to deal with dangerous drivers pre-emptively. Instead it seems we have to wait for them to kill any number of people before a prosecution is brought, that is assuming they have not successfully fled the scene and evaded detection; a black Peugeot springs to mind. Shame about the bandwagoning from the usual MPs. Such a serious issue should have been a high priority for them from day 1, instead we are seeing much money spent on the relatively safe A11 to drive economic prosperity, which you may live to enjoy if you avoid driving on Norfolk's other A roads in the meantime. How much of their current bluster is stimulated by this latest spate of deaths and the need to create a perception that they are taking action. If they are seriously claiming to have been on the case since being elected 2010 it is more evidence of their ineffectiveness as our local representatives.
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Mr Cameron Isaliar
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
You tell that TWR to the family of the lady whose funeral is today who it seems was a victim of an accident caused by another car driving recklessy. I drive the A47 across county on a very regular basis and my opinions are not based on prejudice but on observation One can drive as carefully as one likes but if the overtaking of one car causes another to spin out of control would you tell me how or where other drivers are meant to avoid an accident? Time after time, driving at at steady speed in keeping with the traffic and after leaving an adequate stopping distance one gets a fool overtaking and cutting in when a dual carriage way is only a mile or two away. That's what I see on parts of the A47-I don't know where you drive so that you miss it.Maybe you are the one doing the cutting in. I thought it was accepted that roads should be designed to accommodate the level of traffic they carry in order to minimise accidents. That is why I no longer drive along the lengths of A7 that were open when I was a kid and can be seen as laybys and copses and bypassed villages. A road has to be improved to cope with the volume of traffic no matter how good drivers are-or have a very low speed limit along its length
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Daisy Roots
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Rolf, as a member of the emergency services for 20 years I'm sure you would agree that anyone incapable of assessing risk and overtaking when it is not safe to do so is a danger both to themself and others. Bad overtaking is entirely the fault of the impatient, inconsiderate and dangerous driver doing it and not the fault of a lorry.
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Thoreauwasright
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
As a member of he Emergency Services for over 20 years now, I have to say I do agree with DR on this one. Also can somebody please tell me, WHY do Tesco lorries drive so slow. I have witnessed a few "near misses" involving drivers overtaking these vehicles on single carriageway sections of the A47 and other roads. Especially early mornings.
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Rolf
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
having lost my husband on the counties roads its not the roads that are dangerous!! its the idiots that drive on them.sorry has to be said he died on a notorious road but it was the foreign driver on the wrong side of that killed him not the road
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jackie warby
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Daisy Roots :** " Patrick is wrong.. " **. Actually Patrick is right , try checking the figures. The last time i checked our accident rate in the UK was the lowest in Europe and indeed is one of the best road safety records in the world. And your other.. " How about some police on these roads doing something other than pointing speed cameras.." is an equally misinformed cliche.
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LARSON.E. WHIPSNADE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
You are all so right, with the exception of DR. It is the drivers who are dangerous. Do we really need Freeman MP getting up on his hind legs and telling us he is going to write to the Minister? What's he going to do to the letter? Stand on the side of the road and wave it to get people to slow down. The only way to get people to behave is to prosecute murderous drivers very severely. You are not going to drive really badly if you stand to get a ten year prison sentence with hard labour. And as for "good" drivers. Don't get involved. If there is some steaming idiot coming up behind you at a zillion miles an hour because they think that depressing the accelerator pedal makes them a mighty man then you slow down because you can just as easily be killed by some murderous driver hitting you from behind as from the front or side. Let them go. If they drive that dangerously then they choose their own fate. But if they kill others then call them what they are - Murderers. Someone is dead and they have killed them. Why do we pussyfoot around calling them dangerous drivers. They are murderers. And if they do survive a crash where they have killed someone they should serve a life sentence.
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Electra
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
My thoughts are with the families of all the road fatalities. I do question as to whether the A47 will cope with the extra traffic going to the incinerator at Kings Lynn if built. Either the road is improved before the build or developers pick a site that can be accessed by rail.
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jennifer jane
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Two MPs had their photographs in the paper - I'm sure that will encourage drivers to act more responsibly!! How do we stop these dangerous roads jumping up and attacking us?
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beverley
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
My thoughts are with the families of all the road fatalities. I do question as to whether the A47 will cope with the extra traffic going to the incinerator at Kings Lynn if built. Either the road is improved before the build or developers pick a site that can be accessed by rail.
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jennifer jane
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
In this instance Thoreauwasright is right. Only people can be 'dangerous' , it's ridiculous to state otherwise.I agree with your comments in regard to D.R.- who appears to have a political agenda to follow.
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Colonel Grumpfuttock-Horseposture (retired)
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
D.R. As is often the case you write a lot but say little. Regarding your 'fool in a big Audi' and disregarding your prejudiced attitude towards supermarkets, if you paid a little more attention to the traffic around you, you would not have put yourself in a dangerous position, ergo you would have anticipated the possibility and made sure you would not be in a position in which you had 'nowhere to go'. If you can't show a little common sense and patience at slip roads and make allowance for lack of visibility perhaps you could allow somebody capable to drive you. Even if somebody has been the victim of someone else's bad driving it is still that driving which is at fault, not the road.
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Thoreauwasright
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
How about some police on these roads doing something other than pointing speed cameras? Or some surveillance cameras picking up the dangerous overtaking and the dangerous junction use at places like Drayton Hall Lane?
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Daisy Roots
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Forget the Third crossing it will be a white elephant because nothing is going anywhere with the A12 and the GY Gorleston bypass resembling tracks jammed with donkey carts most of the time. The Middleton bypass-well that's going to cost a fortune to go in the only empty route along a low lying wet valley-maybe we should accept the fact that the East Winch to Free bridge stretch is urban road at 40mph for half a dozen miles-if West Norfolk council had not wilfully allowed so much development in Middleton on their croney's land there would not be a problem. Any money should be spent on sorting out and dualling the rest of the A47 between GY and East Winch. GY will only be saved by money injected by becoming a dormitory for Norwich -taking advantage of the cheaper housing, not by outer harbours and businesses in Norwich need a faster route to the west.
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Daisy Roots
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Patrick is wrong. If we compare Norfolk's trunk roads with those in some other counties we might like to look at traffic volumes at peak times, the miles of single carriage way and the design of slip roads and junctions and wonder if the inadequacy of the roads is bound to result in more accidents no matter how careful people are. The Southern bypass is very good-one or two slip roads have not especially good lines of sight but most are ok. Other parts are bad. We have dual carriageways with laybys with no separation from the road-leading to rear ending accidents.We have dual carriageways with very short or no slip roads at all and fast trunk roads with busy junctions where no speed limit and few striking warning signs are in evidence. It is obvious that at least one victim of recent accidents has been the victim of the bad driving of another. TwR can bleat as much as he likes about good driving, but when you are on the Dereham bypass and a fool in a big Audi comes at you at speed ,impatient at being stuck behind a convoy of Tesco and Morrisons lorries and there is nowhere to go your careful driving counts for nothing.
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Daisy Roots
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Sensible comments here already. Some parts of the A47 are really scandalously bad (I think especially of the Draytonhall Lane junction at Scarning). However, we shouldn't blame the entire situation on "killer roads", as if drivers themselves had nothing to do with accidents. If it saves lives in the absence of a dual carriageway, why can we not impose 50mph speed limits on the single-carriageway sections where most injuries and deaths occur? Most of the A140 in Suffolk is limited on this basis already. Surely for much of the day this would make no huge difference in the section between North Tuddenham and Easton anyway, as there is often a continuous stream of vehicles running pretty much nose to tail.
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gilded beams
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
I am very sorry for those involved and for the families ... but -- completely agree with Thoreauwasright and with melalmighty -- we need improved driving and awareness; but how can that be imposed on those who 'know' they are the best drivers in the world? Disagree with Mr Freeman - yesterday I heard the recorded clip of him saying that 'our roads are more dangerous than most ...' until I was wearied by such nonsense. If he had said that motorists drive worse on Norfolk's roads he would have been so much nearer to the truth! A road is a strip of tarmac after all.. nothing more, not dangerous, not malicious, not malevolent ... A head-on collision is caused by two cars using the same piece of tarmacadam at the same time and heading towards each other. Not by the road itself.
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Patrick
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
I agree totally with Thoreauwasright, if people were to drive with more care, attention and less speed there would be no need to improve these so called bad roads. There are too many irresponsible drivers on today's roads and those drivers range in between 17 and 90 so it's not just the young or the old. People should give themselves more time and leave bigger spaces in between the car in front. My heart goes out to all the family and friends who have lost loved ones in such road traffic accidents, but no improvements in the world will stop these deaths, only the drivers can do that!!!!!!
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melalmighty
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Whilst I concede that the concrete patchwork west of Dereham is far from ideal I would suggest that it's less a case of the roads needing improving but people's driving. Whenever we have a spell of bad weather, headlines urge people to 'drive carefully' as if it's o.k. to drive carelessly at other times. Be patient, leave a safe distance between vehicles, know your capabilities and those of your vehicle and drive according to the conditions - it's not rocket science!
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Thoreauwasright
Tuesday, March 12, 2013