Yesterday morning, 27th May, there was a road traffic accident at the junction between the A816 and the B8025 at Cairnbaan.
A 63 year-old male, a visitor from Canada, was in collision with a local vehicle.
The Scottish Ambulance service attended the scene and the Canadian visitor is now in hospital in Paisley with a hip injury, which is being assessed. He may miss some of his holiday but his injury is not life threatening.
No one else was injured in the incident. We understand that no charges are being laid by Police Scotland in connection with it.
Safety issues at the A816 junction with the B8025
In our view the physical and visual alignment of the B8025 with the A816 onwards to Lochgilphead is dangerously deceptive.
If you come across the swing bridge at Cairnbaan, heading to Lochgilphead and there is no traffic in front of you, you see a perfectly straight long road ahead, all the way you want to go.
If there is no traffic on the A816 from Oban to Lochgilphead that happens to be swinging around the corner on to to the straight you’re looking at, there is no visual evidence whatsoever to deny the evidence of your eyes – that you are on a clear run straight ahead.
Further, if you see traffic coming towards you from Lochgilphead on what is the A816, this looks exactly as you would expect of your own position on a straightforward road ahead.
Visitors, as was the unfortunate Canadian yesterday morning, are very much at risk – but very many residents will admit to being regularly seduced into going straight on from the B8025 at the junction, either with a sudden sharp braking in a last minute realisation – or actually going straight on and just being very, very lucky that there is no traffic coming from Oban on the A816.
Yes, there is a stop sign – but the alignment of the road is the major signal to the mind – and this is dangerously misleading.
There is an urgent case for the council’s roads department to evaluate this junction and to look at a realignment of the entrance to the B8025.