Safety campaign follows two fatal accidents

Launching a Safety Barriers Now campaign, this is what the Observer has to say in a powerful message to readers and the Highways Agency:

SAFETY barriers for a vulnerable section of King Offa Way - that's the Observer's objective.

Twice in three months lives have been lost on the Old Town bypass. Twice cars have careered down an embankment.

Investigations are still underway into the cause of the first, let alone the second. It would be unwise to speculate whether there is any common factor.

Determining the cause of a tragic accident is vital in itself. But where there is cause there is another, equally important, factor - effect.

What is self-evident is that occupants of a small group of properties who have the misfortune to live significantly lower than the busy A259 trunk road at a point where it not only curves but slopes steeply downhill have no protection whatever.

It would make no difference to them - or anyone with the misfortune to be using the pavement in front of their homes at the time - if another vehicle plunged off the bypass.

The cause next time could be a juggernaut with brake failure, a coach encountering ice or a car encountering a tyre blow-out.

The effect could be the same. Indeed it could be far worse for, as Jacki Carpenter graphically describes, she and her family escaped death by a miracle. The safety of the public simply cannot be dependent on miracles.

Ample provision was made for public safety when King Offa Way was planned. One glance a few yards up the road shows what forethought was put into protecting pedestrians on both pavement and underpass from exactly the same eventuality.

It is time occupants of Gilbert House, their neighbours and other users of this area were afforded the same protection with safety barriers

The Observer calls on the Highways Agency to act and to act now.