Following an accident on the Castle Eden/Wellfield A19 interchange last month I wrote to the police traffic management office at Durham Constabulary to ask for their comments. I did likewise with the highways and traffic control team at county hall.
Full background details can be found in the article and additional links I published on this site immediately after the accident:
https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2023/05/a181a19-wellfield-interchange-at-castle.html
Although I’ve yet to get a response from the county council’s highways team I have received comments and a full explanation of the accident from the police. I’ve reproduced the police comments below in full:
Hi Rob,
Apologies for the delayed response to your e-mail requesting information.
I would confirm that an injury collision occurred at 16:32 hours on Monday 22nd May, 2023 on the A181 at its juncture with B1281 (near A19(T) southbound off slip).
It appears Vehicle 1 (Car) has exited the A19 southbound off slip filtering left toward Castle Eden and then performed a u-turn to go to Wingate. Vehicle 1 has failed to see Vehicle 2(car) travelling on A81 toward Castle Eden and collided with the nearside of Vehicle 2 causing damage and injury.
At the time of the collision the road surface was dry, the light conditions were daylights and the weather was fine.
The causation factors recorded were disobeying double white lines, failure to look properly and careless, reckless, in a hurry.
For information the road markings at this location are in a poor condition so a request has been made to DCC for them to be re-covered to ensure they are highly visible to drivers.
Regards
It’s clear from the comments I’ve received that the police have identified yet another case of careless, dangerous and/or reckless driving as the cause of the accident last month. This will come as no surprise of course to residents who have reported near-misses here and at other locations in the Blackhall ward. These are incidents caused in almost every case by wilfully dangerous driving practices or by drivers failing to take account of prevailing conditions.
As regular readers will be aware from previous articles on these pages I believe it’s simply common sense to install safety measures to eliminate or at least reduce the risk of accidents - especially when the authorities have received warnings of a potential risk to public safety. So in response to the comments received from the police, and in light of an additional incident since then, I’ve asked again if they would support a scheme to install safety measures to physically prevent drivers from crossing over the lines into the adjacent lane. I’ve also put the same suggestion to the council’s traffic and highways teams.
I’ll update on progress as soon as I have a response from the council’s highways team and the police traffic management office. In the meantime I’ve reproduced my comments and suggested solutions below, alongside an image of the safety measures I’ve asked to be installed on the A19 interchange at Wellfield:
Good morning ******,
Thanks for your comments on the accident at Castle Eden/Wellfield last month. You may be aware there have been reports locally of additional incidents and near misses at this location since then, caused largely by the careless actions of drivers as you've described.
I'm still waiting for an acknowledgement and response from the highways team at DCC. However I've raised these matters at Director level and would expect to receive their comments soon.
In the meantime could you let me know please if the police would support the measures installed elsewhere in the county to physically prevent vehicles crossing road markings. I note they've been installed with good effect at the Sheraton interchange further down the A19, and are apparently effective in separating vehicles from bicycle lanes in Framwellgate Moor and Pity Me (please see image attached).
I'm sure they would be equally effective in preventing further accidents at the Castle Eden/Wellfield interchange but your comments, and those of the highways team at DCC, would be welcome.
Regards,
UPDATE (Thursday 29 June):
I’ve received a response from the traffic management office at Durham police regarding my request for safety measures to be installed to prevent further accidents at this location. I’ve reproduced the response below in full:
Hi Rob,
With regard to your question around if the police would support the measures installed elsewhere……. I would advise that in principle the Police would support most measures DCC propose as appropriate and legal in the highway which has a potential for a positive impact on road safety. Obviously we would need to review any designs before giving full commitment.
However, in this specific case I am not convinced that this is the answer in isolation.
First you will be aware from previous liaison with DCC that due to the road width it was deemed not possible to extend the island and introduced bollards (like Sheraton) without widening the slip which would entail land outside of DCC ownership. If there is a change and this could be done then that would be great. However, consideration also needs to be given to the fact that the extended island and bollards would still need to cease with sufficient space to allow a vehicle to join the main road from the slip road and there would then be nothing to stop a vehicle from u-turning wherever the extended island/bollards cease.
The difference with Sheraton is that there is a long island in the centre of the main road with bollards as well which means that where the extended island and bollards cease along the slip road it then has the central road island in place to physically prevent a u-turn at the end of the slip road.
There appears to be insufficient road space at Castle Eden to facilitate this extra central island. So in effect this may not be the solution required.
Even if the u-turning stops here due to an elongated island/ bollards, you need to bear in mind that it will potentially exacerbate the residents complaints as even more vehicles will likely be displaced into Burdon Walk and the bus turning circle further into Castle Eden to turn around as the alternative to waiting in the queue on the A19(T) southbound off-slip.
While I appreciate that this will no doubt be seen as negative response, I would advise that nobody would be more delighted than me to have this longstanding concern area resolved but, in doing so, wider considerations must be deliberated including aspects as briefly mentioned above.
