Hello we need your HELP and signatures to PREVENT a serious accident on this dangerous stretch of road in Devon

Dear Readers, A number of residents who live on the Cross Roads after Bridestowe, on the old A30, on the way to Lewdown, have started a petition to request the installation of a 30 mph speed limit

We need your HELP and signatures to Slow traffic & PREVENT a serious accident on this dangerous stretch of road. The section of the road can be found near postcode EX20 4NS. 

The road from Bridestowe slip road, past Little Bidlake, and around the next bend begs for 30 mph signs to be put up to enforce the legal speed limit or decrease it to 30 mph for road safety 

In the middle of that section of road are a campsite, a crossroads with a dangerous blind corner, a number of residential houses, that can't use their front doors in fear of speeding vehicles, and a farm where farm vehicles exit and there are many horses that hack out from the farm

It’s the only route to hacking and bridle paths, for the horses & ponies, at Little Bidlake farm

It’s too fast a road, with too short a distance from the blind corners, for vehicles to slow enough to pass cyclists & horses at the legal speed

So motorists fly through and very few slow to the required 10 mph when passing, and lorries often start braking hard when they see a walker, cyclist, horse, or slower car and then realise its too late and whizz past with brakes hissing

On numerous satellite navigation systems, it shows as a 30 mph section, as does Google maps, and it has street lamps* the whole length of the road, which lends itself to being 30 mph

The road is dangerous, I spoke with locals and very few drive fast through this section because it doesn’t feel or look safe to do so. It is the causal users that are speeding through at 60 mph, around a blind corner, to find to their shock all manner of road users, caravans, tractors, dog walkers, cars, and horses & ponies from a yard with 30 horses, hacking out 

We’ve had many near misses, on our bikes, in our car, and on horseback, as cars, motorbikes, and large lorries whizz past, very few following the new highway laws of giving a wide birth to cyclists and horse riders and the max speed of 10 mph

How do we get 30 mph signs put up, to ensure road safety??

There are street lights along the road, so it already lends itself to being a 30 mph limit by highway law; which says ;

“* National speed limits

A speed limit of 30 miles per hour (48km/h) applies to all single and dual carriageways with street lights, unless there are signs showing otherwise.”

At the crossroads and road between the two corners, if two vehicles approach one from either direction it is not possible to give the room required to pass safely for cyclists, walkers, or horse riders and an accident is waiting to happen 

We have started to report incidents on the British Horse Society website at https://horseincident.bhs.org.uk/HorseIncidents/ReportIncidentStart

and I am liaising with the Local community speed watch  https://communityspeedwatch.org/FRONT-v2-Home.php to see if they can assist 

Action needed to please to put up 30 mph signs at either end of street lights section of old A30 as per other villages on road { whether that's to enforce a speed of 30 mph based on current road setup or to amend any previous decisions to make this national speed limit }

Please sign so we can share it with the parish council and gain their support

You can also show support by emailing the councilors; see their website at https://www.bridestowe.org.uk/parish-council/

Kind regards 

Kevin Humphrey