As this morning’s accident was at least the fourth in the three years we’ve been here, I decided to contact Aberdeenshire Council’s Roads Department to see if something could be done about the bend.
I’ve just sent them an email about the situation and copied it to our three local councillors - Hazel Al-Kowarri, Allison Grant and Sheena Lonchay - as well as to the Press and Journal, our daily newspaper.
I also pointed out that in addition to the accidents in the time we’ve been here, there was also a fatality not long before we bought the croft plus a number of other accidents.
This is the email I sent them, along with photos:
I’ve just finished dealing with the consequences of yet another accident along the boundary of our croft on Western Road, 2.1 miles out of Insch (at the Wardhouse turn-off). It’s at least the fourth accident in the three years since we’ve been living on the croft and we know of another three - including a fatality - that took place in the year or two before we moved in. All have occurred in the space of 150 metres.
In today’s accident, which happened around 7.15am, I was working in my pig pens when I saw a car lose control on the bend (shown below, the car was coming down the hill and hit where the camera is) and then slide nose-first into one of the stone outbuildings on the croft. The driver was thrown from the car and injured, although I do not know how seriously.
While I don’t want to get into blame about this morning’s accident, I know from my own experiences coming around this bend and from what I observe while working in my fields, that a combination of the layout of the bend, water or ice on the road, and excess speed make the road extremely dangerous at this point.
There are no warning signs further up from the bend warning motorists of the bend (although they may not help with drivers who think they know the road and therefore drive around the bend at speed) and there are no signs on the bend itself.
The consequences are that my wife and I, plus our neighbours, are left to deal with the results when things go wrong.
That means finding someone unconscious on the road within seconds of an accident, administering first aid and comforting the victims, closing the road, and making the car safe while we await the emergency services.
In the case of the fatality a couple of years ago, that meant the previous owners of the croft and the neighbours having to deal with an even more traumatic accident scene than the ones we’ve dealt with in the past three years. I fully understand that because most people walk away from most of the accidents on this bend that it doesn’t qualify as an accident black spot - or even crop up on the radar as a bad bend - but it’s only a matter of time before we get another major accident here.
I’d like to see serious consideration given to signposting the bend as hazardous, both further up the road and on the bend itself, even if mitigation work cannot be done on the bend itself.
I’ve copied this email to the West Garioch ward councillors and also to a contact at the Press & Journal in the hope that something can be done before someone else dies on this bend. This morning’s driver was lucky - the next one might not be.
In today’s accident, the car hit the stone wall of the cottage. The fatality occurred a few years back when a car rolled through the gateway a few yards further along, while another car hit the stone dyke just beyond that. Other cars have gone into the trees behind the camera position (see the top photo) or gone off the other side of the road when their drivers over-corrected.
The only sign is an old and faded warning sign indicating that the road curves to the left. There’s no warning to “reduce speed now”, no warning that the road is slippery when wet or icy and no chevrons on the right to indicate a sharp deviation of the route to the left.
The road not only veers left, but it also dips suddenly while the camber is from right to left. Cars that are going even slightly too fast head straight for the opposite side of the road and our boundary fence, buildings and dyke. The faster the car is going, the further down it hits.
Will anything be done? I don’t know, but the bend really does need some sort of warning signs at the very least.
I hope someone takes this seriously and you at least get some warning signage put up. You really don’t need to be witnessing anymore accidents.
Hi Stonehead,
I’m sorry to hear about your experiences this morning. However, I strongly believe that there is no such thing as a dangerous road - but there are plenty of dangerous drivers about.
If you really want to make a difference, you could have insisted that the police leave the car where it crashed as a permanent reminder of the dangers of driving. If there were more wrecks on the sides of roads to remind us just how dangerous cars are, I believe we’d all drive a bit more carefully. Ten people a day are killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads, but very little evidence of it remains after the crash sites have been cleaned up.
Remember, most devices intended to ‘improve’ safety (ABS, airbags, side impact bars, cats eyes, reflective chevrons) tend to cause people to drive more quickly since they ‘feel’ safer - hence the recent phenomenon of removing all signs and road markings from some city streets, thus forcing drivers to actually pay attention to what is happening around them rather than dogmatically concentrate on ‘their’ right of way.
Hope your day improves.
All the best,
Alf
I’d disagree to a limitedextent. There are roads that are hazardous - or indeed dangerous - and this bend is definitely one of them. It curves down and hard round to the left, the camber is awkward, and water runs over the apex.
In the dry, care and moderate speed is needed; in the wet, you need to be cautious and slow; and when there’s black ice, even slow speeds (below 5mph) can see you start to slide to one side.
But, as you say, drivers have a responsibility to drove according to the road and the conditions. Too few people do so.
I don’t know what it is about Aberdeenshire, but there are a huge number of accidents, often involving fatalities. The Turriff to Aberdeen and also the Turriff to Banff road must have at least one accident a week, and the flowers put up beside the road every few miles testify to the losses.
We have a similar problem with our lane. It is single track with the school at the bottom and I often walk the kids to or from school/playgroup. My neighbour has three children, and also walks, and we have two childminders living on the lane who also walk their charges to and from the school.
Once I was waiting outside the school at closing, on a wet day, and a tractor came past so fast that it rocked the parked cars. No way would the driver have stopped if a child had run out of the gates.
I have written asking for either a road widening or a footpath, ot no avail - I didn’t even get the courtesy of a reply! I hope you have better luck.
There are loads of single vehicle accidents here in the NE, many under 25’s, and excess speed is nearly always the cause.
Keep the speed down = less accidents.
I agree that in 99% of accidents speed is a contributing factor. It seems that in the northeast of Scotland that everyone speeds - not just the under 25’s. Of the 50+ accidents that happened on roads in the Grampian Police area last year only one was an accident that could not have been avoided. I agree with you Stonehead that roads can cause accidents but not on there own. How many people travel that road every day and do not crash? Driver attitude is the biggest problem “I know this road I travel it everyday” so they think that it is ok to go a little faster! I am 27 and since I left school have seen over 20 people my age killed in car accidents. It is a subject that will always be hard to take and watch lives ruined. But to quote an offshore safety note “there is no such thing as an accident”.
How many people travel that road every day and not crash?
The question should be “how many people travel that road every day and almost crash?”
I’m out there every morning between 6.45am and 7.45am, again later in the morning, again in the afternoon, and again in the late evening when I check the livestock.
After more than three years, I’ve come to know the sound of speeding cars, I’ve come to know when someone has misjudged it but might recover, and I’ve come to know the ones that are definitely going to come a cropper.
I’d say about 20-30 cars a day have a scary moment on that bend, while about half a dozen have a near miss. An Aberdeenshire Council lorry was a case in point last night - every seen the wheel on a lorry lift off the ground as the driver tries to keep it on the road?
Or this morning, just after the wreck was removed and the police had gone, I watched as a red Subaru Impreza came around the bend at speed, slid on the wet surface, crossed to the wrong side of the road and near-missed a car going the other way.
If putting a few signs up makes even one or two people a day slow their speed on that bend, that has to be a good thing. As for speeding in general, there needs to be both better driver education and draconian enforcement - not least because I’m tired of being near missed when out cycling.
Try cycling out of the village through first a 30mph, then a 40mph zone. Most cars start to speed up as they pass the last houses of the village proper (still a 30mph zone), a noticeable number accelerate to 50-60mph plus in that area, and almost all are doing 50-60mph through the subsequent 40mph zone.
As for being on the open road from the end of the 40mph zone to the croft, sharp ears, good eyesight and fast reflexes are definitely in order as drivers hammer past. We were nearly blown off the road this morning by a sheep transported (18-wheel articulated lorry) that swayed through one bend -on the wrong side of the road - and then thundered past us doing at least 60mph before having to brake hard to take the bend behind us.
But that’s not the point of the original post - which is that the bend should be signposted at the very least so that some drivers might be encouraged to slow down.
Never mind about the speeding cars along your road… how safe are YOU and your precious cargo when you pedal your ‘people carrier’ ?
Warning signs and perhaps an improvement in the camber of the road would certainly seem to be the least that is needed.
Sadly, speeding motorists do not only injure or kill themselves, they collect victims as they go.
Keep away from that boundary wall when on your croft, and pedal carefully when you do venture out!
I have to work all along the inside of that boundary and am always conscious of the hazard - it’s one of the reasons I know so much about people’s driving habits on that section and their near misses.
Worst of all, though, is working on that fence line. Then I have the Other Half as lookout and we both wear safety vests.
As for keeping safe on the trike, I do my best but I’m not about to follow other people’s examples and abandon the roads to motorised transport. If more people reclaimed the roads for pedestrians and cycles - even horses - then the safer it will be for them as well as for drivers.
If the casualty was ejected from the car they WILL be SERIOUSLY injured (query were they wearing a seat belt) they will be lucky to be alive
You have touched a nerve for me (my adrenaline is pumping, just reading your post.) We have lobbied successfully on two occasions to get improvements made to a road, both roads have been resurfaced, yes people drive to fast on country roads (don’t set me off on a rant about bikes! see my post
http://uphilldowndale.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/the-killing-season/
On both occasions we knew the road very well, and the drivers involved in the accidents came in all shapes and sizes, not just boy racers; but as we watched with horror as it happened time and time again and we found ourselves digging the first aid kit out on more than one occasion it became obvious that it was more than just driver error.
It took tenacity, we spoke with police, Parish and County councils and local press, first the County Council put up signs (to cover themselves we suspected) but further letters and phone calls lead to improvements to the camber, drainage and road surface, there have been very few incidents since.
Don’t give up; I wouldn’t wish it on any one to bear witness to a fatal road accident; it is not just the casualties that are the ‘victims’ of road accidents.
And all this is on top of the risk to you and your family.
http://uphilldowndale.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/the-killing-season/
Good publicity about your potentially dangerous corner in the P&J today
nice page3 “mug” shot too!?
Signs have a tendency to be ignored. Has the people in charge ever considered cutting some of those warning grooves in the road that makes the car vibrate, like you see when approaching a dangerous stop intersection ahead, that tend to remind you to slow down.
[...] Bend nearly claims another one… 8 10 2007 I was out feeding the pigs at 7.10am today when I heard yet another driver hammering his car along the road towards us and that bend. [...]
Here is a blogger coming at this subject from a different road. But I think we all meet at the same junction.
http://totallyun-pc.blogspot.com/2007/10/as-jury-returned-their-verdict-ramshaw.html
The council has now erected striped posts with reflectors along the bend.
It has made a difference as drivers now seen the reflectors crossing their path, particularly at night. I suspect many drivers don’t really notice the bend sign off the road to their left, but shiny posts in front of the them draw their attention.
While out working with the pigs tonight, I noticed most drivers were now braking well before the bend and not as they were starting to go through it.
Whether it lasts once the novelty of the new posts has worn off is another thing.
But, it’s a good start from Aberdeenshire Council in improving the bend.
Yay, that’s a result!