Safety work starts at accident blackspot

Reporter: RICHARD HOOTON
Date online: 09 September 2009

WORK to make a notorious accident blackspot in Oldham safer is under way.

Anti-skid surfacing, new signage and extra drainage gullies are being applied to the A672 Ripponden Road at Besom Hill, Moorside.

Oldham Council has taken action after a series of crashes and fatalities this year.

The most recent accident, less than a month ago, took the life of Benjamin Jessop (24) from Barnsley. He died after the Hyundai car in which he was a passenger was involved in an accident with a bus.

In July, the same accident blackspot claimed another life after a man lost control of his Jaguar and crashed near Besom Hill brickworks, a sweeping bend in a 40mph zone. Only 12 hours earlier, police were called to a three-car smash on the same stretch.

And in May, a 47-year-old biker was killed in a crash involving a Clio car and two motor-cycles on a near-by stretch of road, close to the Ship Lane junction at Grains Bar.

Other accidents have included a 4x4 skidding off the road in bad weather and overturning with passengers lucky to escape injury.

The toll has led to a debate over whether driver error, including going too fast for the road or conditions, or poor road design and surface are to blame.

Oldham Council’s casualty-reduction section has been surveying the road and is carrying out the work as short-term measures while investigations continue.

Former Waterhead councillor John Anchor is among those who have pressed for road improvements and a speed-limit reduction after witnessing some of the horrific accidents.

He welcomed the new measures but said while temporary traffic lights remained in place it was too early to tell how effective they would be.

He said: “The measures that have been taken very rapidly and as a matter of urgency are welcome and are in recognition of the gravity of the situation. It could not go on for ever that there are so many accidents and so frequently and with two fatalities in such a short space of time.

“There are worse bends on other roads with fewer accidents which suggests there’s something structurally wrong at this location.

“I understand that in due course there may be an attempt to straighten the road out a little bit, which may help.

“Clearly speed is an element in all accidents and a particular problem in this case, particularly going up the hill away from Oldham and towards Denshaw, some vehicles do exceed the speed limit by a large amount.

“It may be in due course the speed limit will have to be reviewed.

“Hopefully the measures will lead to a reduction in accidents.”