‘Road safety boards look like a hangman’

A TEMPORARY traffic safety scheme on a death crash road has been branded ineffective.

Kirklees Council attached six ‘Think!’ signs to lamp posts on Meltham Road between Lockwood Viaduct and Butternab Road around two weeks ago.

It follows a council survey In June 2006 of people from Armitage Bridge to gather their opinions on road safety measure for Meltham Road.

Six similar signs were placed at the sites of fatal crashes on Wakefield Road between Waterloo and Grange Moor.

The boards were the brainchild of Clr David Sheard, Kirklees Council’s cabinet member for transport. He was inspired by similar signs in France.

Each sign costs £50.

But residents of Armitage Bridge say the signs are virtually invisible at night. One driver even mistook it for a man hanging, says Armitage Bridge man David Joyce.

Mr Joyce, 63, said the signs are ignored by speeding motorists, who often do not know what the signs mean.

Now residents, are demanding ‘proper’ road safety measures including speed cameras, better lighting and clear speed limit signs.

Kirklees Highways says it will be consulting the public for their opinions on other road safety measures.

Meltham Road has had 22 accidents, including three fatalities between the junctions of Delph Lane and Hanson Lane since January 2003..

In July, Christian Lang, 17, died when the car in which he was a passenger collided with another vehicle in a head-on crash.

One month before a woman flipped her BMW 4x4 after a parked car on a stretch of the road in Lockwood.

Retired Mr Joyce said: “One neighbour’s daughter was driving at night. It was very dark, she saw the lamp post and thought some person had hanged himself and nearly crashed!

“Let’s have some proper speed reduction measures like they promised in June 2006.

“Is this the best they can do?

“Nobody knows what these things mean.

“It’s not slowed any traffic down.”

A spokesman for Kirklees Highways said: “There have been 22 accidents on Meltham Road between the junctions of Delph Lane and Hanson Lane since January 2003. Three of those have resulted in fatalities, three were serious and 16 were slight.

“The Think! signs are an interim measure to improve driver awareness of hazards on this route and were requested by residents who met with the Highways Service last year. Other measures are being looked at and there will be further discussion with local ward councillors in the near future”.