SHEPLEY residents are calling for urgent road safety measures at the infamous Sovereign Cross roads, after yet another car smash.

The accident last Sunday (February 24) was the third serious collision at the notorious junctions in the past six months alone.

Councillors from the three ward area committees that border the crossroads are collaborating to fund a feasibility study into road safety improvements in a bid to reduce accident rates, but residents believe immediate action is needed.

Shepley man, Melvyn Briggs, said a simple sign would do the trick as it wasn’t possible to see the main road when driving up Carr Lane.

He said: “Ask anybody round here, there’s been petitioning demanding some signs at the junction of Carr Lane and the main road.

“If you don’t know the area it looks like you can go straight across.

“People that know the area are very careful, but people that don’t, come up there hell for leather. It needs an effective sign, possibly an illuminated one that says halt or stop.

“How many accidents do we have to suffer?

“We don’t need a feasibility study, just a sign.”

Clr Martyn Bolt, Kirklees Council cabinet member for transport, said he would await the response of the official police investigation before deciding what to do, adding that it would be better to get a comprehensive solution than to just do a short-term fix.

Quoting an example of drivers being blinded by the sun – a problem that cannot be fixed by the council, he repeated his mantra that it was important to know the cause of the crash before making any physical changes to the roads.

The crash last weekend happened where Carr Lane and Cross Lane meet the A629 Lane Head Road near to the intersection of A629 and A635 trunk roads at Shepley.

A Peugeot 307 and a Nissan Almera collided and crashed into two vehicles that were parked on a nearby grass verge – a Nissan Micra and a Land Rover Discovery.

Firefighters from Holmfirth, Skelmanthorpe and Huddersfield attended the scene.

Paramedics were also in attendance.

None of the people in the vehicles was seriously injured.

The junction has become an accident blackspot and has been at the centre of dozens of serious accidents and the roads around it have claimed four lives in the past two years alone.