Speed limit cut at Falfield near Thornbury after accidents

THE speed limit will be cut on a road serving a busy motorway junction after four fatal accidents.

Drivers will have to stick to 40mph along the length of the B4509 between junction 14 of the M5 at Falfield, near Thornbury, and the Tafarn Bach roundabout at the top of Charfield Hill once the changes are introduced.

Currently there is a shorter stretch governed by a 40mph restriction, with the rest in a 50mph zone. But the accident rate has led to proposals to slow traffic down and make the route through Tortworth safer.

The road is a busy commuter route and used by a large number of lorries travelling between the motorway system and Yate, as well as to a nearby quarry. It also carries local traffic and farm vehicles and has just had a footpath built along its edge to make it safer for pedestrians.

In the three years to the spring of 2011, there were eight injury accidents reported to police, half of them resulting in people being killed or seriously injured. Two happened at the entrance to a farm. Recently the Evening Post reported how a short-sighted tractor driver killed a motorcyclist when he drove into his path. Richard Daniels, 63, of Olveston, did not see Nicholas Swallow, 36, of Charfield, as he turned his tractor and trailer off the B4509.

South Gloucestershire Council said common factors contributing to accidents included drivers failing to look properly and failing to judge the speed or path of other vehicles.

The new measures include the two vehicle-activated signs reminding drivers of the speed limit and signs warning of tractors turning at Elmtree Farm. Road markings will tell drivers to slow near the farm and double white lines prevent overtaking on the approach to the M5.

The council is also cutting speed limits on the B4058, which meets the B4509 and runs through Cromhall, and reducing to 30mph the limit on the approach to Charfield from the Tafarn Bach roundabout.