A43 - road safety campaign

Four dead in a month - is no one listening?

If four people had been killed in Kettering Town centre due to a dangerous facility run by Northamptonshire County Council there would be an outcry.  If the Council had been warned about it time and time again and given simple tips on how to prevent death people would be sacked.  But it seems that people can keep dying on the A43 out in the countryside and the Council effectively does nothing.

There has been another tragic double fatality this time near the junction with the A14, somewhere near the old scrap yard.  The ET has the story here.

'The accident happened at about 4am on Saturday morning on the A43 near the road's junction with the A14.'

'A police spokesman said: "The men were in a blue ford focus travelling from Northampton to Kettering when the vehicle left the road in the vicinity of the scrap yard by the A14 roundabout.'

This campaign just can't understand the mindset of people at Northamptonshire County Council who go to work, see that more people have been killed on a facility they are responsible for and then plan to do nothing for the next five years.  It is unbelievable that our elected representatives don't do something about it.  We need averaging camera enforced speed limits on the whole length of road between Northampton and Kettering to stop this carnage.  They could paint double white lines to stop overtaking and slow traffic down in under two months.

Fatal crash - full details

The Telegraph and the Chonicle and ECho have some more details on the fatal accident on Thursday 7 August 2008 - they now say it was near Broughton as the photo suggests(see map) - another 'safe' modern junction.  If you were on the road on that Thursday morning and saw anything call the police, details below.  The Chron says:

'A VW Passat and a Ford Transit van, both travelling towards Northampton, were involved in a minor shunt. A Nissan Vanette travelling in the same direction behind these two vehicles was then involved in what police said was also a very minor collision with a trailer behind the Ford Transit. However, the Nissan then crossed to the opposite carriageway and was in collision with a Scania Tipper. The Nissan driver, also a 33-year-old man from Leicester, was air-lifted to Walsgrave hospital in Coventry where he is in a serious condition.'

The Telegraph says:

'The Nissan Vanette in which he was a passenger collided with a tipper lorry on the A43 at Broughton.
Police say he was Nicholas Davore Hartshorn, 33, of Park Road South, Wigston, Leicester.
'Another man was seriously hurt in the accident, which closed the road for several hours.
Officers from the Collision Investigation Team are appealing for witnesses who saw the collision to come forward.
"The road was extremely busy at the time and in fact it is believed that the first minor collision happened in heavy traffic, but very few witnesses to the collision have so far come forward," said a spokesman.
Police are asking anyone who was on the A43 on Thursday morning and saw any part of this collision to contact them on 08453 700700 or on the Drivewatch Hotline on 0800 174615.

Another tragic death - when will Northamptonshire County Council act?

The Council has credited the fall in accidents on the A43 to modern well designed junctions - they don't recognises speed as a factor.  The junction at Mawsley is a brand new roundabout - you can see it on the map by clicking here.  Yet still there is a tragic death.  We need concerted action to cut speeds and bring some calm to this lethal road.  The Evening Telegraph reports:

'One person has been killed and another seriously injured in a four-vehicle accident which has closed a section of the A43 between Kettering and Northampton.
'The collision near the Mawsley roundabout took place at 11.45am this morning and involved a lorry, two vans and a car.
'Witnesses said the air ambulance had been called to take casualties to hospital.'

Another A43 tragedy - when will they act?

Yesterday a young woman was tragically killed and her passenger seriously injured in a collision with a lorry on the A43 at one of the danger points this site has highlighted.  Eye witnesses reported that the dead driver was overtaking at one of the many deceptively blind corners on the A43 and hit a lorry head on.  Cheap and simple double white lines along the length of the A43 from Sywell to Kettering would have prevented this tragedy.  We called for this here. The air ambulance was called out and the road closed for three hours according to the BBC (report here Radio Northampton also covered the crash) The survivor was said to be 'poorly' - a euphemism for seriously ill.  Our sympathy goes to the families of those involved.

Since the last post we have been busy campaigning and lobbying the Council, the police, local hospitals and local politicians to take some simple measures to improve safety. We have been appalled by the indifference amongst council officials and some Councillors and the unwillingness to take simple steps to improve safety in the face of overwhelming official statistical evidence that this road is very dangerous. Officials seem to be hiding behind the downright weird confection that labelling the road a 'red route' makes a difference.

There are loads of simple things  that can be done to improve the road without waiting 15 years for dualling.  How many more people have to die in speed related or overtaking accidents on this deadly road before the Council takes action?

We don't think there is any evidence that this is making a difference to accident rates and indeed that no one knows what 'red routes' are in Northants.

A43 - more dangerous than the M1 - offical

The A43 between Northampton and Kettering is officially the most dangerous road in Northamptonshire - 32 people killed or seriously injured between end 2002 and end 2005.  For the official police data from April 2006 click here.  In absolute terms, this is nearly twice as many people killed and seriously injured than the next most dangerous stretches of road - the individual segments of the M1 with 17 KSI each ! 

So in proportion to the traffic flows, presumably far larger on the M1, this bit of the A43 could be ten or even a hundred times more dangerous than the M1.

The Kettering-Northampton A43 is one of Northamptonshire's designated 'red routes' to be targeted for road safety improvements.  You can read more about these red routes by clicking here.  The police, council, courts, highways agency and health authority work together in a 'casualty reduction partnership' (click here) to try to make roads safer.

But we have seen little benefit from this partnership here - just lots of confusing signs so far.  The partnership doesn't seem to be very transparent.