Question
At the junction of Sonning Lane and the A4 there have recently been a couple of accidents. Thankfully there have been no fatalities. This is a particularly dangerous road.
Please can you advise the number of accidents there since the year 2000 and what safety measures can be taken?
Minutes:
Question:
At the junction of Sonning Lane and the A4 there have recently been a couple of accidents. Thankfully there have been no fatalities. This is a particularly dangerous road.
Please can you advise the number of accidents there since the year 2000 and what safety measures can be taken?
Answer:
A total of 17 personal injury collisions were reported by Thames Valley Police in the past 21 years, 4 of which involved serious injury with the remaining 13 reported as slight injury. As the elected member for Sonning states, thankfully none have resulted in a fatal injury.
Road safety benefits are the result of consistent and formal appraisal, coupled with targeted investment at those locations where interventions can make a difference. The formal appraisal of Local Safety Schemes sites is based upon a period on the five most recent years of data, and this shows that in this case only one 1 serious injury collision was reported in 2016 and there have been none since. Consequently, this junction would not be a location that would be prioritised as needing any specific intervention, with too few collisions to determine if an engineering intervention should be implemented.
It is worth noting that the A4 Bath Road should not be regarded as a dangerous road. The section of A4 in Wokingham, between the Reading and Maidenhead boundaries, carries over 20,000 thousand vehicles each day including freight, commuter and leisure traffic and yet saw the number of serious collisions more than halved in a recent three-year study period (2015-18). The traffic safety on the section of this route within Wokingham is one of the most improved routes in the country, according to a 2020 report from the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP) which undertakes annual Crash Risk Mapping across the country’s strategic (SRN) and major (MRN) roads.
The reason for this improvement stem from a combination of minor improvement schemes and signing/lining measures, as well as our highway maintenance activities such as resurfacing, and winter maintenance implemented in the study period.
We will of course continue to monitor the safety record of this junction and prioritise it for a formal appraisal should the number of incidents increase significantly.
Supplementary Question:
One of the accidents, a young lad, suffered a double broken leg, and I would consider that a pretty dangerous incident, a life changing event for that poor boy, so I do not really recognise that particularly. I want to drag it out a bit more about the road. Are you able to give more details on the number of accidents and measures taken for the rest of the A4, not just that particular junction as well? They are all kind of linked. Warren Road is another, there is so many of them, South Drive, so many along that road which are potential death traps really.
Supplementary Answer:
I do not have that data to hand. I do not have statistics for that whole road, but I will be happy to get them for you. I think what you have got to remember is that the volume of traffic on that road is very significant, and sometimes where roads feel unsafe because of the volume of traffic, they are actually, in proportion to the amount of traffic, safer than you might think, but I will certainly find the statistics. I will ask Officers to respond to you. We can have a chat about any particular concerns you have following that.