Safe Speed Forums

BBC News

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Is this in the A14 speed camera zone?

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Speed camera policy Kills

More noise and traffic, or crashes and deaths? Hmm, thats a tricky one!

Realigning roads and minimising junctions, thats the sort of sensible road planning that is gonna stop the accidents. They must be thinking how many speed cameras they could buy with £32m though!

I don't think you could put any more Truvelos on the A14 if you tried.

It's by far the worst quality trunk road in the country, in my opinion.

No, I believe that is the stretch between Huntingdon and the junction with the M11. There are three permenant speed cameras in each direction, plus the use of mobile camera vans.

Also going west there is one on the east side of Cambridge and going east there is one at the juction with the A11, which is currently defunct due to necklacing.

There are several cameras along that stretch. It is the same section that was in the news a couple of weeks ago when the Judge made comments about non speeding drivers being a nuisance.

The Huntingdon - Cambridge stretch is the bit where SPECS cameras are due to be installed shortly and the limit dropped to 60.
What the highways authority can't seem to see, is that the high level of accidents on that stretch are due mainly to the incredibly bad raod layout. The A14/M11 junction must surely be the worst-engineered junction in the country. Going west from that junction there is the entrance to the crematorium, then an off ramp to Dry Drayton, then another exit to Longstanton, Tescos and Willingham, at which point the 3 lanes becomes 2 lanes. All this within about 1 mile of the point at which A14 trqaffic is entering on the left and trying to move into the outside lane to continue westbound whilst some M11 traffic is trying to move across to one of the next exits.
IMHO, the crem. exit and the Dry Drayton exit should be closed and a eturn road built from the next exit back to the previous 2 exites, inc the crem. Then the A14/M11 junction itself should be re-engineered to avoid 'cross-over' traffic with better signing.
And the authorities think that making drivers concentrate on not exceeding a 60 mph average over this stretch will help in some way. Their incompetence and ignorance of the real world beggars belief

Cooperman you may recall the huge fire at the petrol station on the west bound A14, just west of the Bar Hill junction, where I believe one lorry shunted into another, possibly a petrol tanker, trying to get into the petrol station.

It brought gridlock for miles around.

I recall there was one fatality of a man in the toilet at the time, so before he met his maker I should think it scared the sh1t out of him.

At the time I was working for the ink-jet company just through the hedge, and there was great consternation about the adjacent solvent store being included in the conflagration.

I believe this accident was, in part, the result of the overlap between the Bar Hill west bound exit and the entry to the petrol station.

This explains why HGVs are no longer allowed into that petrol station.

As you say, the whole of the A14 was a half-baked design, particularly with many of the appalling junctions. Those at Eastern and Keyston further west are particularly bad, but I understand nothing is being done about those. There was anyway a fatality at the Eastern junction where an HGV had to cross the central reservation from its depot, but the central reservation was not wide enough to accommodate the length of the lorry, so a Mondeo ploughed into the bit of trailer sticking out into the carriageway.

I can't see that reducing the speed limit to 60 will do anything to reduce the accidents and injuries, since I understand most of those occur when the road is so busy that you can't get up to 60 anyway. I believe the main cause of serious accidents is due to the large proportion of HGVs from the east cost ports and they are limited to 60 anyway. Anyway when you get hit by an HGV, it is not so much the speed, but the 40tons of mass that does you in.

Of course as normal, reducing the speed limit and putting in more speed cameras with bring in more revenue, while sorting out the problems with the junctions will cost revenue, so is there any doubt about which option will be selected.

Haughley bends is in suffolk between Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich.
Road is dualled and bendy (hence name)with a lot of gaps and therefore right turns. 2? speed cameras each way. Notorious in Suffolk for being accident prone, especially as the A14 is the main lorry route to the west and north from Felixstowe and Harwich. LHD foreigners prone to cause problems.
I've met quite a few people who've had problems there

In fact entire A14 is underfunded and should be at least 4 lanes either direction with proper graded junctions etc.

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I walk I cycle I drive and I vote

The whole A14 was a penny pinching botched job, from start to finish.

The analysis of the likely demand on it, with all the goods traffic from the east coast ports to the Midlands, was completely underestimated.

The junctions with the M1 and M6 at the western end is absolutely appalling.