MORE safety investigations are to take place after the latest crash on a “blackspot” road.

Councillors will meet police after the latest serious accident in Wakefield Road, Lepton, to decide if more work is needed to make the busy road safer.

The news follows a crash early yesterday which left a Dalton man seriously ill in hospital.

His car plunged into a field in Lepton after careering off the road, between Pond Lane and Pinfold Lane.

The 18-year-old driver of the VW Corrado was driving on the A642 from Grange Moor towards Lepton when the car veered off the road crashed through a fence and ploughed into a field.

He was trapped in the vehicle for 30 minutes and had to be freed by firecrews from Huddersfield.

The man suffered serious facial and head injuries and was taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and later transferred to Leeds General Infirmary from where his condition was said to be “stable”.

Police have appealed for witnesses to the incident which happened shortly after midnight.

Anyone with information is asked to contact PC Ray Terry at Huddersfield Road Traffic on 0845 6060606.

The A642 was re-opened shortly after the incident but was then closed for several hours because he severity of the man’s injuries prompted a major police inquiry.

It was re-opened around 7.15am on Wednesday morning causing some delays for morning commuters.

Yesterday’s crash is the latest in a series of fatal and serious accidents on the same road over the past seven years.

Seven people have died in accidents on the stretch between Waterloo and the Grange Moor roundabout, and several more have been badly hurt.

A number of the accidents have been on the same stretch as yesterday’s crash, where the road goes up and down a steep dip.

Since 2002, Lepton residents had been calling for urgent safety improvements to the road and their pleas were partly answered in 2006 when speed limits along several stretches of the road were cut.

The speed limit where yesterday’s accident occurred is 30mph.

Clr Adrian Murphy, one of the local councillors involved in the safety campaign, said he was distressed to hear of another accident.

He pledged to hold urgent talks with police about what could be done.

But he added: “The problem is we are restricted as to what we can do.

“Wakefield Road is an A-road and as such we cannot install speed bumps or sleeping policemen to slow down traffic.

“We have used flashing warning signs on other stretches of the road to warn drivers to slow down near junctions and the speed limits have been lowered.

“I will be raising the matter when we next meet police to decide what needs to be done”.