First accident at Cabstand lights
By thepickler | Friday, March 05, 2010, 18:34
PORTISHEAD'S Cabstand junction has had its first accident - six months after the traffic lights were switched off.
The accident happened at around 11am on Tuesday when one car shunted into another on the Waitrose garage side of the junction.
It is understood a motorist had stopped for a pedestrian to cross the road and another vehicle shunted into the rear of the vehicle.
No one was injured in the smash and it is understood that neither car was badly damaged.
North Somerset Council switched off the lights at the controversial junction in September as part of a four week trial to see if it helped ease traffic congestion in the town.
The trial was hailed as a huge success, with the once lengthy tailbacks along the High Street disappearing and traffic moving freely through the town.
The lights have remained hooded over ever since and are eventually expected to be removed altogether.
Other improvements are also being planned for the junction, including new zebra crossings and road markings.
The crash was the first to happen since the lights went off on September 14.
Council highways chiefs have said despite the incident, the lights will remain switched off.
North Somerset Council executive member for highways, Councillor Elfan Ap Rees, said: "This was a minor incident and could have happened whether the lights were there or not.
"The fact that there has been one minor accident in the last six months is not going to make us change our minds about the lights being switched off.
"They are doing no harm remaining there hooded over.
"There are no plans yet to remove the lights and we are currently looking at making some improvements to the junction by putting in pedestrian crossings."
The Cabstand lights were installed in 2004 at a cost of £800,000 and were funded from 106 planning agreement money from local developers.
But their installation caused outcry among local residents who said they caused traffic chaos on the town.
Two public protest marches, led by campaigner turned councillor David Jolley, have been held in the town, with thousands of residents walking through the streets to press for changes to be made.
The Conservatives promised to re-examine the issue of the lights as part of their election pledge.
Comments
With reference to the accident at the Cabstand lights. I understand a film crew was filming at the lights for the BBC when this incident occured and in fact caught the aftermath on film. It's my experience that many motorists can become distracted by the presence of film crews by the roadside and this probably contributed to the accident.
By Axtek at 11:49 on 01/04/10
ReportI had an articulated truck described by a Motorola gentleman concerning the days he was in the Army and travelling by car being passed by said truck sliding sideways at over 70 mph along an iced Autobahn, which is the type of reason why I did not wish to be crushed between two trucks proceeding in opposite directions on the M4 for research in the climate of motorways to public safety in 1969, chewed into small fragments by the Rally through Wales burning brake discs 1968, dive off South American mountain highways on a bicycle. I having been sideways along a Forest track in a Beetle with heavy back end, down toward the Gordano on ice rotating into a kerb in an Anglia, most unstable, off a bicycle at the base of Coombe Avenue on gravel through my trousers and a large amount of hip bleed and bruise, rabbit on the Somerset Levels and a ten foot brick wall, I was taught to react, seen BMW "parked" sideways at a motorway junction and dancing at the back of three cars on the motorway north of London recently I just prefer to defer appointment as a Climatologist. Elijah and Mick Burke had enough trouble with that. So two feet on the ground and head in the clouds as at Hartpury College Farm when students dived into the cattle poached soils. That is why a Renault might save your life on the brakes and the Crest at Tormarton might kill you with obscured (washer induced) windscreen and four wheel slip in a VW due to the tracking. Having ridden Cabstand up, down and sideways I would not trust the pace at all, alike most roads in this country it is an old cattle, or horse route, where the horse simply pulled the coal cart and Mr. Gale up toward Nore Road and Mr. Gale was not a small man. Ashes from dust and coal from the Valley pits. Very few were purpose designed as the crumbling edge along our Levels will prove. So expect to fall off something if you reach the age of 17 and pass your test at 19.
By MikeHydroSoil at 12:30 on 18/03/10
ReportWhat is it with all the people in portishead, have we attracteced all the moaners, have clevedeon or nailsea got all the smilers. The Junction was never controversial, the lights were. It now works as it is. Leave it along, do no more and get on to delivering solutions and happy things for the people of portishead like an ice cream van in the power station re development
Dave
By suttssutts at 22:50 on 09/03/10
ReportThe Cabstand site was OK before they spent days moving cones about, and a roundabout would have been adequate, however spending on digging is a Council favourite sport, every time it has to be altered another set of Highways and Local Authority gets flushed and all they had to do was dig out the sewer and make a channel to the dock when it was derelict, when the petrol station "moved" to a less congested Clist and Rattle at Home Base Tesco McDs, as all they had to do was re-open the Bristol centre river reach. We used to have streams and grassland, there were sheep on the oil tanks, cattle in the fields, concrete fly ash by the power station and phosphorus in Clevedon Strode Road and scattered through the Grange road bouncing off the lorries ... now all we have there is flood. Boring! Spend spend spend on stuff we never asked for and they are our reps, not we their servants!!
By MikeHydroSoil at 23:54 on 06/03/10
ReportWas that an ironic comment?
By MajorAl at 16:37 on 06/03/10
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