ROAD safety experts will bring in new measures to cut the death rate on a busy Huddersfield road.
Eleven people have died on Wakefield Road in the last 16 years – including two people in the past four months.
Wakefield MP Mary Creagh held an urgent meeting with police and highways staff from Kirklees and Wakefield councils to come up with an action plan.
Kirklees has agreed to add hazard warning signs, high visibility studs and road markings between the Grange Moor roundabout and Middlestown.
The council has already added crossing islands at Lepton and a sign which flashes up drivers’ speeds at the junction with Paul Lane.
There are 30mph, 40mph and 50mph speed restrictions along various stretches of the road through Lepton and Grange Moor.
Wakefield Council has also agreed to improve road safety on its stretch of the 14-mile road.There will be more hatched areas, crossing islands and chevrons and the road will be narrowed at Middlestown. The speed limit change from 40mph to 50mph at the National Coal Mining Museum at Overton will also be better signposted.
The work, which is due to begin in the summer, comes after Ms Creagh organised a meeting with road safety experts. These included Kirklees Council traffic engineer Mark Ramsden, assistant director of Kirklees Highways Jacqui Geldman and Sgt Paul Denton from Kirklees Roads Policing Team. Bob Whyatt represented Wakefield Council at last Friday’s meeting.
Ms Creagh said: “I held this meeting to get everyone round the table to tackle the issues. I have been pushing for clearer indications from both councils on what they can do to cut the toll of death and injury.”
Ms Creagh also wants both councils to put up signs showing how many people have been killed on the road.
She said: “We need to show people how dangerous the road is. I hope we will get the signs up to tell people about the road deaths and force them to think twice before putting their foot down.”
The latest person to die on the road was James Mulholland, 20, who was killed near the National Coal Mining Museum last month.
Last September, Upper Hopton man Andrew Hirst, 33, was killed when his Subaru Impreza crashed near The Kaye Arms at Grange Moor.
