Road Safety on the Coast Road was a key topic of discussion at last nights Southport Area Committee - you can see the report here.
There have been 11 fatalities on this stretch of road over the last 10 years in addition to a large number of other road accidents - usually shunts. For those of you not familiar with Southport, this road runs from the end of the "sea front" to Woodvale and is used by most people as a by-pass around Southport - you can see the satellite picture of the road here Admittedly, from the map, the road looks like a nice pretty straight route but the road cuts through the sand dunes that make up part of the Birkdale and Ainsdale Sandhills Nature Reserve. This effectively means there is no where to go if motorist get into difficulty and although it looks straight there are some deceptive bends which make judging distances difficult.
The report put forward a number of proposals but I, for one, think we need to go further. During the debatet a number additional ideas were suggested including a reduction of the speed limit for the whole length of the road. Now don't get me wrong, I am not pro-speed however I believe that simply reducing the speed limit from 50mph to 40mph here will not solve the problem and may in fact make the problem worse . One of the contributory factors in most accidents has been inappropriate overtaking something which I believe is likely to increase if you get motorist travelling at 40 or even 30 miles and hour. It makes sense then to couple any reduction in speed with measures to prevent overtaking either for the whole length of the road or for specific sections of the road. A point I made during the debate last night and one which was supported by Police Inspector Fairbrother.
A further report including this suggestion is set to be debated at the Southport Area Committee meeting in July .
This is certainly going to be a big decision, if they decide to make changes on the law that would contribute to the reduction of road accidents in Southport. It's good that you've pointed out one of the major reasons why road accidents happen. Some people just drive like they're kings of the road and they recklessly overtake whenever they want.
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