Speeding is turning Stow into a racetrack say residents
SPEEDING motorists have turned Stow-on-the-Wold into a racetrack, claim "flabbergasted" residents.
A united call came for the town council to put the brakes on drivers coming through the tourist town at "absolutely incredible" speeds.
Resident Kit Ayers said: "Stow ought to apply to Bernie Ecclestone to have a Formula 1 racetrack.
"People who are late for Kingham Station put their foot down and hare through between 6.45am and 8.30am.
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"My wife almost got clipped the other day."
Michael Selhurst said the A436 Park Street, between Digbeth Street and Enoch's Tower, was an equal nightmare and warned an accident would happen.
"We have cars, pantechnicons, farm vehicles and some empty buses racing through there," he said. "I understand what 50 to 60mph is and to see cars coming down there at these speeds is absolutely incredible.
"They do not brake and I'm flabbergasted at what some of these drivers do.
"I've seen a lady with two young children who has tried to cross the road near the fork with Maugersbury Road almost visibly in tears because she can't.
Dangerous
"This area of Stow is very dangerous, indeed it's one of the worst areas I've witnessed in my life."
Mr Selhurst said a county highways officer examining the spot had been "rather glib" by saying there had not been an accident.
"There is an accident waiting to happen and if we don't do something about the speed I'm afraid someone will be injured or killed."
Residents called for proper signs and warnings, or even temporary 30mph on lampposts at least. Stow town councillor Simon Clarke said there would be an accident as traffic was also "shooting up" to beat the Unicorn Hotel traffic lights at the A429 Fosseway.
Council traffic and parking committee chairman John Kennell said it was just as bad on the A424 Evesham Road.
"I'm regularly overtaken doing 30mph by stuff doing 60mph," he said.
He said the council had paid £1,000 for one of two flashing speed signs on the A436 Oddington Road, but people ignored them.
Councillor Chris Turner said the council was supporting the police's Community SpeedWatch scheme, which trains residents to measure speeds with radar guns and feedback information and number plates to police.
He said: "If we have residents making a robust effort towards this, with our help, I'm sure we could do something."
The council is also looking into a 20mph central speed limit.
Comments
by RoadWombat
Monday, March 04 2013, 6:23PM
“"It's an accident waiting to happen..."
"Someone will be injured or killed..."
The stock complaints, to be sure, but show us the EVIDENCE of danger.
The fact is, there isn't any because there haven't (it appears) been any accidents!
I am all for speed limits where there is a clear problem, but it appears that the traffic is coping quite nicely as it is. Indeed, if traffic can pass through regularly at 50 or 60 miles per hour, and do so for many years without there being injury accidents, then the EVIDENCE would seem to point to removing the existing 30 limit and putting it up to 50 or National.
Once you get a pattern of accidents, including serious and fatal, over a sustained period, THEN you may have evidence of a problem and the existing 30 may be justified. So keep monitoring, by all means, but don't expect people to support you if you call for totally unnecessary speed limits without evidence to back it up.”