One pedestrian was almost hit when a lorry failed to give way to an oncoming car
A TRAFFIC calming measure which is putting pedestrians and motorists at risk has led to residents calling for a consultation into the safety of College Road in Cardiff.
Essex Havard, a resident on College Road, Llandaff North, launched a petition for the consultation, after his son was nearly hit by a car travelling through the chicane.
A chicane is a narrowing of the road where one vehicle has to give way to another – often represented by a bollard and a raised curb in one half of the road, and a sign explaining which side has priority.
“My son had his small van parked on the roadside outside our house, and he was unloading things from it. He had slid the door closed, and walked around the back of his van. As he did that, a neighbour pulled away from outside her house to drive up College Road which is her right of way through the chicane,” said Mr Havard.
“A lorry came through the chicane not giving way when it should have. The car and the lorry passed each other in the centre, the narrowest part. The car swerved and hit a parked car, stopping exactly where my son had just been standing, unloading his van.
“That’s what made me really upset and angry- this could have happened outside my house. It really made me think- we’ve got to do something.”
Over just two nights of door-knocking, Mr Havard collected the 50 signatures required to have his petition heard by a full council meeting.
“Every single person I spoke to signed it without hesitation. If I had carried on, I would have got hundreds.
“We’ve had years and years of clipped wing mirrors, bad driving, cyclists been cut up or overtaken as they are going through the chicane,” said Mr Havard.
The chicane sits directly outside the house of Martin and Deanna Williams.
“It is almost like a target to some drivers. They see it and think “I’ve got to get it through there quickly,” said Mr Williams.
The speed limit on College Road is 20mph, but many drivers do not stick to it, it is claimed.
“When the roads are fairly clear, there are people who will speed down this stretch. People will start right up the top by the bridge, and they’ll be doing 60 or 70mph by the time they get down here,” added Mr Williams.
It is almost like a target for some drivers.”
Martin Williams
A number of children use College Road to get to nearby schools, including Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf Welsh-medium school and Whitchurch High School.
“The fact the road is narrower means people think it’s a crossing place. Children will try and dart across. When it’s school time, it’s really busy,” said Mr Williams.
“The number of school buses that come down here – sometimes you have a fleet coming through. If one goes through the chicane against the flow, all the others will follow – no-one is going to break up a stream of buses.”
The rise in road rage resulting from the chicane is another concern for residents.
“It’s a nightmare, in one word,” said Keith Roberts, another College Road resident. “It causes a lot of problems in respect of tooting horns, accidents, swearing. Drivers tend to throw things out of the window – bottles, cans.
“It’s a very, very busy road, in constant use. Sometimes it takes five minutes to get out of my drive,” said Mr Roberts.
Cardiff’s Transport White Paper (published in 2019, entitled ‘Changing how we move around a growing city’) predicts a daily commuter increase of over 150,000 in 2025 across the city, meaning the problem of congestion is likely to get worse.
A community meeting to discuss the traffic calming measures on College Road was held on Thursday, January 23. Llandaff North councillor Jennifer Burke and Matthew Price, team leader of Active Travel and Road Safety at Cardiff Council, were in attendance.
More than 20 people came to the meeting. A number of new measures were suggested by residents, including speed bumps and zebra crossings.
“In Whitchurch, they have zebra crossings that are just stripes on the road- there’s no cost of wiring it up to the mains,” said Mr Williams.
Mr Roberts thinks that the chicane should be taken away and replaced with a speed camera.
“That may slow the traffic down a bit,” he said. “The council would make money out of that as well.”
Mr Havard emphasised that residents were not calling for the chicane to be removed without another measure being in place.
“If there were a number of measures along the road that slowed traffic down in succession, then the chicane could stay there, because traffic would be slow enough to react.
“The problem is caused because the road is so straight, and there is such a good view as you are coming towards the chicane – people think they can go through before the car that actually has right of way.”
Mr Williams believes that one of the problems is having the chicane so far down the road.
“Two or three speed bumps spaced out would be better,” he said.
Coun Burke and Matthew Price set out the difficulties the council are facing in regard to funding. They told the meeting that the Welsh Government has taken money out of road safety to put into active travel.
The Cardiff Local Development plan published by the council states their aim for “50% of all journeys to be made by sustainable transport by 2026”.
The Active Travel Act (Wales) 2013 placed a legal requirement on councils to “build and improve road networks for people travelling on foot and by bike”.
They also said that additional funding for road safety does not tend to come unless a cluster of accidents has occurred at a location.
“Most of the scrapes are minor, so you’d never involve the police,” said Mrs Williams.
However, Mr Havard believes that simply waiting for a serious accident to happen before acting is not an option.
“You’ve got to be hit or hurt in order to get action, and that’s not right. There’s enough evidence here to say, something’s wrong, let’s fix it before it breaks.”
“It’s basically an accident waiting to happen,” said Mr Roberts.
Coun Burke posted on Facebook after the meeting, saying that she has reached out to Welsh Government and the council to push for more road safety funding.
She has also submitted an ongoing Freedom of Information (FOI) request to obtain information on personal injury claims relating to College Road, and has requested data on school routes to help identify key areas for pedestrian improvements.
We need to hold the council’s feet to the fire.”
Essex Havard
Another potential measure suggested by Matthew Price was to find a way of recording the speed of vehicles’ travel through the chicane.
But Mr Havard believes this will not show the full extent of the problem.
“It’s not really showing traffic behaviour,” said Mr Havard. “If a car goes slowly through the chicane, it may be because they are being good, but it might also be because they are trying to squeeze through when someone is coming the other way.”
All updates regarding the consultation will be announced via the Llandaff North Labour Facebook page.
The Cardiffian contacted the Llandaff North PCSOs for a comment on this issue, but received no response.
“This isn’t the end, this is the beginning of a process now,” said Mr Havard. “We need to hold the council’s feet to the fire.”
