A group of us, parish councillors and residents, met at the Guildhall junction this morning to discuss options with the county council's highways engineer - he was the one in the reflective vest! - on how best to "calm" or slow down the traffic coming along the Duxford Road and North Road so that people pulling out from the High Street have the time to do that without running the risk of being hit by traffic. As we pointed out, and we could see the evidence before us, you only have about two seconds to execute the manouvre before something coming along even below the speed limit reaches you, and that isn't very long. Two people present outlined accidents that had occurred to them or their significant others. I cycle and sometimes drive out of that junction in the morning and it is pretty chancy - in some ways being on a bike is easier because you can hear the cars coming, but still.
Our proposals for a mirror met with a number of objections from the engineer, because he and his colleagues consider them unsafe, but the other alternatives are, it seems to me, costly and unpalatable - speed bumps or cushions - and we don't think "slow down" electronic lights work. To be fair, as he pointed out volumes of traffic have risen about 15% in recent years, and there are other equally chancy corners across Cambridgeshire. But this is our problem corner, and we want to find a solution before there is another accident.
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