saucy-scooby

During the last 10 days there have been several accidents on one of the best kept roads in the South of England, the A34. For those not aquainted with the A34, it runs as a dual carriageway from the M3 to the M40 with a large intersection with the M4.

Last night a car went off the road, rolled over and 5 people were hurt, then in the early hours of this morning 1 person died and another 3 were hurt in another accident. Both accidents closed the road for several hours, again last week a lorry overturned closing the road for 17 hours.

I us the A34 in its entire length several times a week, have done for many years. There are some dodgy driving standards on the road but certainly no more than any other road in the country.

The road surface is extremely good, visibility is excellent, service stations along its length so tiredness shouldn't be a problem....so why is that road having so many accidents?

Are there any other roads that are good but have accidents on a regular basis for no apparent reason?

What can be done to stop such tragedies?

Mice_Elf

When the parents moved us into the present family home, we used to have numerous accidents just outside the house.

The majority seemed to be men, on their own, who just lost the car, started fishtailng and detoured into our ditch.

Some bright spark had built a garage and McDonald's right on a decptive curve of the road - the A1 - and of course, it's against people's religions to pull over into Lane 2 and let people into the flow of traffic.

The amount of times we heard horn blaring, tyres screeching, the bang, the second of silence and then metal tearing and crumpling... =shakes head=

Within 12 months I think we had 18 accidents outside the house. Then they changed the camber of the road some 8 years ago and haven't had a single similar accident since. Still get the horns blaring and the annoyed lorry drivers as pratts in cars think that they can pull out just in front of 40 tonnes of slow-to-stop vehicle and not have to worry about it...

Ratman

The new section of the A34 has criminally short sliproads for joining/leaving. This anything to do with the problems?

Ratman
MY98 Wagon

P.S. I hate the A34.

Mungo

Poor driving standards I think. A few weeks ago I was on the A329M between Winnersh and Reading at about 11:30pm - it's almost straight but has no streetlighting. There was virtually no traffic, but somebody has still managed to roll a car into the (thankfully very wide, but full of trees) central reservation. I mean, WTF? I can't believe tiredness could have been a factor - the road's only about 6 miles long even if you've come all the way from Bracknell. How on earth do you roll a car on an empty motorway?

MarkO

A34's a long, sweeping dual-carriageway, and is very boring. I can't see any reason why it would be any more dangerous than any other road.

Mind you, it's probably down to the lunatics who speed along it (the A34 was where I got banned for doing 102mph 5 years ago ).

pugoetru

oh no here comes the safety cammeras!

Mungo

Driving fast along the A329M needn't be dangerous as I know of at least 2 cars doing 140+ there and they managed not to roll it... The guys who rolled were no doubt only doing 70, but pi$$ed/stoned, trying to change the CD, roll a ***, answer the phone, eat a sandwich, etc, etc

T.C

The A4074 from Caversham (Nr Reading) used to be called the 13 bends of death because of the number of fatalities that occured there every year, (I must have dealt with about 20 in my time)and everyone blamed the road.

It is/was a superb piece of tarmac, so the local authority reduced the limits, put up cameras and thought that overnight the accident rate would drop 100%.

It wasn't the roads fault, it was the manner in which the roads were driven/ridden, in the main all young men showing off their prowess to their mates rather than driving safely and appropriate to the conditions.

It is one of the reasons why the Government won't raise speed limits on the Motorway and the like, because although the vehicles are capable of sustaining high speed safely, the majority of drivers/riders aren't.

saucy-scooby

There is a road quite close to where I live, the A3055, Beaper Farm Corner, its notorious for accidents.

Really wide sweeping curve, superb surface with grass areas on each side then trees. Sadly however it is at the top of a long but not steep hill and there are some who just love to 'test' the road handling of their cars. One night last year a Cavalier and an XR3i were having what can only be described as suicidal 'fun'. The 17 yr old lad behind the wheel of the XR3i lost control, spun out and rolled the car. He and his 4 passengers, all under 16, were killed instantly. Police estimated the speed to be around 70mph on the 40mph bend, it was wet that night, the car had no MOT, 3 bald tyres and sadly 4 lives were wiped out in an instant. Two months later a couple in a Metro lost control of their car, the driver, who I knew, was decapitated when the car rolled onto its side and he fell out through the open window. The car had just past its MOT, and the steering rack had failed. Just goes to prove that its not always the driver at fault, although in truth 75% of young drivers think they might be immortal. A 17 yr old wrote of his Nova at the bottom of the same hill a few weeks ago, he thought he could overtake a car, sadly he ran head on into a Volvo saloon coming up the hill. The Volvo driver died at the scene, his passenger died a few days later. The Nova driver was 3 times over the booze limit and will be appearng in court soon...he was uninjured in the crash.

The local council installed armco barriers on the bend, so now there isn't any run-off area to escape to should you need to.....

Only a matter of time before someone dies after winding up in the armco.