A parish councillor has warned of the hazards on the A66 and its junctions leading to Portinscale, Braithwaite and Thornthwaite.
It comes after a Cumbria police patrol car ended up in a hedge on the Penrith-bound side of the A66 on the afternoon of Monday, October 17. The incident happened opposite the turn-off for Portinscale and Grange, after a collision involving a Mini.
Cllr Don Thoburn, of Above Derwent Parish Council, said the area had a long history of accidents.
Cllr Thoburn said: “The right turn from the Portinscale junction to Keswick has to be taken with extreme care. Vehicles which are travelling from Keswick at 60mph approach, then signal left to turn into Portinscale and move over into the slip lane.
The vehicle behind then speeds up and the person making the right turn fails to see the fast-approaching car until it’s too late.
“The same scenario can be applied to a person turning left towards Braithwaite. If they do not accelerate away (from the junction) quickly then the vehicle from Keswick has to take evasive action.” Cllr Thoburn said slightly different scenarios occurred at the Thornthwaite junction.
“The slip road has now been removed and any vehicle that wants to turn left onto the Thornthwaite road has to indicate, slow down to 20mph to make the left-hand turn.
“When the new layout for the junction was modelled it had a central reservation to protect any vehicle that was travelling from Cockermouth.
“However, when work started it was discovered that large vehicles coming from Thornthwaite that wanted to make a right-hand turn onto the A66 would not be able to do so because of the proposed island.
“Hence vehicles coming from Keswick overtake on the double white lines and numerous accidents have occurred. Some people see the solution to this section of highway is to have a 40mph limit.
“Many years ago, I attended an on-site meeting with highways staff and I mentioned about a 40mph limit, the response was that traffic would be nose-to-tail and would create long waiting times to join the A66. Roundabouts have been suggested, however, I doubt very much that this is a viable solution.”
Statistics from website www.crashmap.co.uk, derived from Department for Transport statistics, indicate that in the last 10 years, far more collisions occurred at the junction from the A66 onto High Hill. Nine slight collisions and three serious collisions were recorded at the High Hill junction or nearby.
