It's my belief this corner should be 40, no more. In fact, that the whole of Winchester road into Whitchurch should be 40, but one fight at a time.
So here is where I'll be posting a record of my communication with the council employees, managers, elected representatives at local, county and national level. This record will show how good (or bad) the Hampshire authorities are at reacting to public concern regarding road safety.It is my fervent hope that during what I anticipate will be a long struggle, no-one is injured or killed. Being proved right in that way would be a tragedy.
Now first and foremost, thankfully no-one has been injured or killed. For that, and the lack of opportunity to say 'We told you so', I'm very grateful. However in the intervening year nothing has changed.
What has just arrived is what seems to be the final word on the matter:
Dear Mr Stead
Referring to our previous correspondence, please find attached the Note of the Scoping Study carried out by the Head of Operational Safety with our service provider, Enterprisemouchel. The reports confirms that it will not be possible for us to justify the type of action you are proposing. We will continue to monitor the junction and give consideration to other possible actions we can take, subject to availability of funds.
... Asset Manager-Highways Agency | Federated House | London Road | Dorking | RH4 1SZ
And here is that Scoping Study, in all its glory: http://goo.gl/IqiynT
It takes about 5 minutes to read, end to end. It includes data on 10 different collisions that have happened in the area, and notes that none of these occurred at the Nun's Walk-Winchester Road junction.
Let's look at some of the findings:
"The severity ratio is higher than the national average and the Area 3 average, however due to small number of collisions the percentage change is high and as such should be treated with caution."
What this seems to say is that there *might* be a problem, but because more people haven't been hurt or killed, we can't be *sure* there's a problem. In the detailed description of the three crashes that occurred on the Northbound sliproad, the report finds:
"None of the above collisions occurred in the vicinity of the Nuns Walk Junction, and all three collisions involved driver error"
The report goes on to state:
"Remedial measures at this location will not save any of the recorded personal injury collisions that have occurred on the slip road during the last 10 years, irrespective of severity of collision. However, if funded, some remedial works may alleviate the anecdotal problem of vehicles heading the wrong way up the slip road"
The report seems to be assuming that the ONLY area of concern here was the Nun's Walk/Winchester junction, when it was actually the whole issue of the Sliproad being a 60-70MPH zone which then funnels vehicles into a sub-optimal intersection at speeds allowing only a fraction of a second to react to any road danger. If traffic was only doing 30MPH, this intersection would not be an issue.
The report then states that yes, the Nun's Walk/Winchester road layout is an issue, and that
"some remedial works may alleviate the anecdotal problem of vehicles heading the wrong way up the slip road"
and then goes on to detail just what this might involve - more signs, more paint, some kerbing built into the existing road. But - and this is the killer, no pun intended:
"In order for any solutions to be put forward to address the concerns/problems a Project Appraisable Report (PAR) would need to be completed and presented at a Value Management Workshop. The PAR is populated with the need, intelligence gathered, costs associated with the solution and the calculated savings, a score is generated automatically in the form of a Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) and a ranking score, derived from the BCR, scored out of 10.
BCR = Benefit from Investment (expressed in monetary terms) / Cost of Investment
In our conclusion it is stated that there are no solutions to mitigating the collisions identified and as such the score generated would not generate a positive score, with costs outweighing any Benefit.
So they acknowledge that yes, this junction is not good, and that three vehicles have crashed in the last 10 years due to excessive speed / drivers 'losing control' (which is another way of saying they could not stop/avoid something in time, i.e. were travelling at an excessive speed). But because the three crashes occurred 1-200m up the sliproad and not actually at the junction itself, there is no benefit to be had from any improvements because they wouldn't have made a difference in those three cases.
The issue of just exactly how to stop HGV's travelling up the sliproad and killing a family of four (£8M worth of Benefit-Cost savings right there, DfT/HMRC) is left hanging.
Here's the full conclusion:
Four collisions occurred on the Northbound off slip but none in the vicinity of Nuns Walk and all involved driver error and loss of control. None of these collisions have occurred due to vehicles going the wrong way up a slip road
Whilst statistics show that this area is above the investigatory levels and trends, the actual collision numbers are low. Any small increase or decrease in collisions, which could be subject to random fluctuations, results in a significant percentage change and as such these trends and investigatory levels should be treated with caution.
Any decision to change a speed limit is to be guided by the level of collisions occurring on that stretch of road. The relationship between the speed limit and collision frequency has led to the establishment of Investigation Levels, which trigger if action is required. From the information provided by the Safety Team this trigger point has not been reached.
Reduction in the speed limit is unlikely to alleviate the concern of vehicles going the wrong way up the slip road.
None of the remedial works proposed, if funded, would save any STAT19 personal injury collisions, however, some remedial works may alleviate the anecdotal problem of vehicles heading the wrong way up the slip road.
Vegetation clearance as part of routine maintenance has taken place and these works were completed on 24th May 2013.
Funding for improvements at this location would not score positively through the HA Value Management Process as no evidence based benefits can be established
So: crashes have happened due to speed. But not enough of them, and not at the intersection. People have seen HGV's and cars driving up the sliproad through the intersection, we know there's a problem there, but no-one's hit one yet. Therefore our Benefit-Cost ratio tells us we shouldn't do anything.
Genius. I'm out of options. If you want to write your local or national representatives further on this matter, please do. All the info is here, in order, laid out plain to see.
...and if you hear of anyone being hurt or dying, please do drop me a line. Maybe then we'll see the magic Benefit-Cost ratio tip in favour of a safer road.
Hopefully it won't be you or your kids waiting to turn right...
Thanks for reading
Mike
