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Alliance
For Immediate Release 1 9 May 2004
Death Trap Crash Barriers
After months of traffic delays while crash barriers were installed on the southern section of the A24, the A24 Alliance has branded one section of the new barrier just south of North Farm a 'Death Trap'. The problem has arisen because a row of sturdy trees in the central reservation, that prevented south bound vehicles crossing the central reservation and crashing into the north bound ones, have been replaced by a flimsy metal barrier.
Peter Finch for the A24 Alliance said: "This is a terrible piece of road engineering. This road is a racetrack most of the day and these bends are a notorious crash site. Clearly those who planed this must have been first year students. Anyone with just the slightest bit of common sense can see that as you travel south around this left hand bend, the northbound carriageway is quite a bit lower. What the engineers have done is to mount the barrier some distance from the southbound carriageway on the lower ground, this has had the effect of making that section of barrier lower that normal.
Sadly what is likely to happen, should a vehicle hit the barrier at speed, is that the vehicle will be launched into the air and into northbound traffic, resulting in a scene similar to what occurred last week on the A23.
We are calling for an immediate 40MPH speed limit to be imposed on this section, and for the barrier to be supplemented by the concrete barrier seen during the metal barrier installation. Why oh why didn't they leave the trees".
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Notes for Editors.
The A24 Alliance was formed in January 2003 by a number of residents who live in the various villages and individual locations along the A24 from Dorking to Worthing.