In an earlier news item, ‘Transerv’s wooden roadside barriers threaten Argyll’s road safety‘, we drew attention to the road maintenance contractor’s reversion to wooden roadside barriers abandoned previously because of the horrific injuries they caused to crash victims. This earlier item is worth reading in detailing the nature of the injuries such barriers inflict. This has now been proved again. In a recent accident south of Inveraray in MId Argyll, one of the sites where Transerv have installed these barriers, a Renault Clio skidded on a rain-swamped road surface and crashed through the barrier on to the shoreside. With the impact, a wooden stave came through the windscreen on the passenger side of the car while another tore the handle off the passenger door ands went on to spear into the passenger space. By sheer good fortune the male driver was alone and what would have been unspeakable – and avoidable – injuries to a passenger did not come about. If the authorities do not act to have these fatally dangerous barriers removed, it is rumoured that there could well be some instances of principled civil disobedience as locals with chain saws take matters into their own hands in the common interest.
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