The following received from the Highways Agency:
Dear Mr Stead
I am Assistant Asset Manager for the A34 in the vicinity of Whitchurch and I have been asked to respond.
We note your comments and concerns regarding the findings of the scoping note sent to you by Surinder Bhangu. The issues you have raised relate to the speed limit on the A34 in the vicinity of Whitchurch and instances of driver error at the same location.
Any proposals to reduce the speed limit on the A34, needs to be supported by evidence that there would be safety benefit (reduction in recorded accidents) to the travelling public. In addition, the police who are responsible for enforcement of any speed limit would need support any new proposal. In this case, due to the relative few recorded accidents, we are unable to provide a case to reduce the speed limit at this time.
We have investigated potential options that might reduce the potential for driver error which includes going the wrong way up the on slip. However, any funding towards a scheme would require evidence that it would reduce recorded accidents.
I agree that the issues are completely separate, however we have analysed the A34 in the vicinity of Whitchurch as a whole to provide a robust study instead of looking at individual issues (that would have given less evidence). We have gone further and considered 10 years of accident data instead of the normal 5. There is currently not enough evidence to suggest that a scheme at this location would provide a safety benefit to the travelling public. It would be even more difficult to provide robust evidence of safety benefits if considering the issues completely separately. The speed management trigger levels for further investigation are set out in table 1.1 (page 8) in the scoping note.
I can reassure you that we will continue to monitor the A34 in the vicinity of Whitchurch but at present we cannot justify an improvement scheme at the location.
Yours sincerely
..., Assistant Asset Manager
Highways Agency | Federated House | London Road | Dorking | RH4 1SZ
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My response, CC'ing in MP George Young, HCC Cllr Tom Thacker, B&DBC and Town Cllrs.:
Dear ..., HA staff
Thank you for your reply. I would like to address the points you raise, again:
Sliproad speed
Any proposals to reduce the speed limit on the A34, needs to be supported by evidence that there would be safety benefit (reduction in recorded accidents) to the travelling public. In addition, the police who are responsible for enforcement of any speed limit would need [to] support any new proposal. In this case, due to the relative few recorded accidents, we are unable to provide a case to reduce the speed limit at this time.
According to your own scoping note the collision rate is four times the national average (Table 4.1), yet the Highways Agency don't see this as warranting remedial action. Also you have not advised what the per-100 million km crash rate is for the 500m-long A34 northbound Tufton off-ramp area, to allow comparison with the trigger level of 37 crashes per 100 Million km travelled.
Let me work backwards from what we do know to get an idea: there have been 3 crashes in the past 10 years (Table 4.1) on the northbound sliproad, and the area the area in question is 500m in length. As there have not been 37 crashes in the period, rather 3, we must divide 3 by 37 to get the multiplier of 0.081, but as we are only talking about a 500m stretch of road, we need to double this number to 0.162 in order to get an accurate per-km comparison. 100m vehicle movements multiplied by 0.162 is 16.2 million vehicles over ten years, or 1.62 million per year, or about 4,438 per day, or 185 per hour, or 3 per minute, 24hrs a day. Let's assume traffic between 10pm and 6am is very light indeed, giving a 'waking hours' flow of 4.5 cars per minute. I am not a statistician and last sat in a maths class several decades ago, so am open to being corrected on these numbers but believe I am more or less correct in my assumptions.
So if the northbound Tufton sliproad carried 4,500 cars per day off the A34, the crash rate of one per year would not warrant investigation. This is clearly absurd - I would suspect the volume of traffic per day is an order of magnitude lower.
In other words, and without knowing your specific traffic flow numbers, I surmise that the crash rate on the 500m stretch of the northbound A34 sliproad at Tufton is at least ten times that required to trigger an investigation. The Scoping Report states that '...the A34 in its entirety was below the criteria for any speed reduction measures' - however we are not talking about the A34 70MPH dual carriageway. We are talking about a single-lane off-camber sliproad with successive blind corners approaching an intersection, that cannot be safely negotiated in a normal car at more than 35-40MPH.
Therefore the first thing I would like to know is:
1) what is the per-100 million km collision rate for the 500m stretch of the northbound A34 sliproad
Wrong-way driving onto sliproad
We have investigated potential options that might reduce the potential for driver error which includes going the wrong way up the on slip. However, any funding towards a scheme would require evidence that it would reduce recorded accidents.
The issue here is that there have been no recorded collisions due to vehicles entering the sliproad in the wrong direction. Locals are telling our elected representatives they have witnessed wrong-way driving by cars, vans and HGV's, going onto and off of the sliproad, but no actual crashes. The Scoping Report acknowledges "if funded, some remedial works may alleviate the anecdotal problem of vehicles heading the wrong way up the slip road".
I would therefore also like to know:
2) Is it the HA's policy to acknowledge the anecdotal evidence from locals having witnessed vehicles driving the wrong way up the sliproad, the possibility for what would inevitably be a serious or fatal head-on collision at speed, then state that because no actual collision has occurred to date, no justification can be made for works to prevent an actual crash occurring? How can this possibly be an acceptable outcome for the community?
Political accountability
A question for Cllr Thacker & Sir George:
3) Given the number of locals who have witnessed driving on the wrong side of the road at this intersection, in both directions, and the fact that you have been made aware of this on numerous occasions, and that the Highways Agency itself has acknowledged this as an issue in their Scoping Report, are you happy to wait until a crash does occur? If/when a collision does occur, what liability as elected representatives will you accept for the lack of action on the Highways Agency's behalf?
A question for the Highways Agency staff:
4) likewise you are very well aware of this problem. If/when a collision, injury or death occurs, what personal or professional liability will you or the Highways Agency accept?
Regards etc etc
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Resident's replies:
To george.young.mp, tom.thacker:
Dear All,
How very grateful many people are to Mike for continuing to put forward the absolute need for this intersection, junction to be made safe.
On a daily basis the layout of this intersection causes drivers to not drive safely and we residents often hear of near misses or cars/trucks being disorientated by the layout and lack of clarity in terms of lane reduction, two way change, no north bound on ramp etc etc etc.
At approximately 930am todayI so wish I had had a camera available to photograph a car proceeding up the off ramp, ie facing me, head on, as I was driving off the A34 off ramp.
Thank fully I had my headlights on, was driving as always on this off ramp, very cautiously, and so there was no accident. The driver was so shocked to see me heading towards them they managed to do a "U" turn and scurry away.
So yet again, very dangerous situation occurred due to this badly designed intersection, and no accident or fatality or evidence entirely due to my cautious driving and local knowledge.
I am a mother, wife, sister, daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin and there is no monetary value that could buy my life back this morning had the outcome been different. I would simply have ended up just another tragic story that would fade in the council's eyes, and be filed.
Please would you mind addressing this situation urgently before someone does die.
Many thanks,
...
Dear Sir George
Please excuse my taking up of your time, however having lived in Tufton for over 10 years with my family, I am now so concerned about a particular situation and the relative lack of material change that has been described as unavoidable due to costs to request your assistance at the highest level necessary.
I will refrain from going in to detail which I believe has already been provided. However in short I share with others a real concern about the road safety associated with the A34 underpass and northbound slip road which proceeds it.
On many occasions when driving from Whitchurch I have encountered cars travelling on the wrong side of the road underneath the A34, narrowly missing what would inevitably be at least a net 60 miles an hour head-on collision, this based on both cars travelling at 30mph which I am sure you appreciate is a gross underestimate.
It is apparent from communications with the Highways Agency that such an issue is recognised and that potential solutions are available. Indeed I drew this conclusion myself on the basis that an arrow was sprayed on to the road under the A34 a few years ago - regretfully this is in the shadows of the bridge and I would suggest evidently too late on the road to have any material benefit and therefore of little assistance.
However it is commented that available measures to address the issue are implemented on the basis of addressing likely future catastrophes assessed with reference to how many have occurred in the past rather than the simple prevention of an issue ever coming about. Whilst I can appreciate the economic logic (there is only so much money to go around), I find it regrettable if not distasteful that as residents of our small community we are being used as bait to justify the implementation of preventative measures. It seems that if we have a number of accidents, of varying levels of severity, over the next week or so, we may indeed be granted prevention measures. I'm afraid gates and horses bolting spring to mind.
I would therefore be most grateful for your support and influence to help address the situation that we face - it would be more than a great shame if an accident was to occur in the future and we had done nothing to prevent it occurring other than accept that finances got in the way. There are so many horror stories in the press that I feel compelled to try to avoid another one, on a more personal level close to home.
I very much look forward to hearing how you can assist us.
Kind regards
...
