A PENSIONER has been knocked over by the backdraft from a wagon for a second time.
Birdsedge woman Beryl Smith was blown over by a gust of wind from a passing HGV.
The incident is a shocking case of déja vû for Beryl.
The unlucky villager was blown into the A629 Penistone Road by a speeding lorry at almost exactly the same spot in 2008.
In the latest incident, Beryl was walking on the pavement using her wheeled zimmer frame when a large wagon heading for Sheffield went thundering past.
The force of the wind knocked her backwards and she keeled over and banged the back of her head.
The lorry driver did not stop but she was helped up by a couple of good samaritans in a passing van.
One of the pair helped her home and called the local doctors and a nurse was sent out to check she was okay.
She said: “I was quite a way from the edge of the pavement, as far over as I could go.
“I was going down to the postbox when a large wagon went past and I just fell straight on my back.”
More than a week on, Beryl said she still had a sore head and felt a bit achey.
Beryl said she did not blame the lorry driver and said road safety measures installed by Kirklees Highways actually made things more dangerous.
She says chevrons painted in the middle of the road force bigger vehicles very close to the pavement, causing a danger for pedestrians.
The road markings were installed after a horror crash in the village in 2006 when a car smashed through a wall and landed in a front garden.
It is the second time Beryl has been knocked over by the backdraft from speeding heavy goods vehicles.
In February 2008 she had a brush with death after she was sucked into the busy A629 Penistone Road as she stood on a grass verge waiting to cross over.
Beryl was standing on the east side of the road when a white container wagon heading towards Sheffield thundered past and pulled her into the road behind it.
Almost unconscious and with a large cut to her head, she staggered to a friend’s home for help with blood streaming down her face.
Following the incident villagers launched a campaign to get the chevrons removed.
A new digital speed sign has been installed on the northbound carriageway but nothing has been done about the chevrons.
Beryl said: “Who else is going to get blown down?
“The chevrons definitely don’t slow traffic down, the new speed sign does, but they don’t.”
Denby Dale Tory, Clr Jim Dodds, said he had spoken to Kirklees Highways and they had said they were going to investigate the matter.
