YOUR VIEWS: Some suggestions for helping to make A9 safer
Click here to sign up to our free newsletters![1]
Transport Secretary Mairi McAllan said she was open to suggestions on how to make the A9 safer at the recent Inverness Courier A9 Crisis Summit. Picture: Callum Mackay.
It is very clear that the A9 from Perth to Inverness will not be completed by 2025 as planned; not even by 2045 at the present rate of progress.
For several years while the dualling was being planned I represented ScotWays (Scottish Rights of Way and Access Society), my remit being to ensure no access routes crossing the A9 would be lost when the road was dualled.
To that end I attended about 30 meetings with engineers and exhibitions, which gave me an in depth understanding of the A9. I am however writing this from a personal point of view, as I regularly drive the A9.
Firstly, and most importantly, the death rate on the A9 is unacceptable.
There is an urgent need to reduce the dangers, albeit that the dangers cannot be completely reduced until the entire route has been dualled.
The most notorious accident spot is the summit at Slochd, where the southbound dual carriageway ends and becomes a single carriageway.
It is a rocky defile; there is no escape from a head-on collision.
In my opinion it would be sensible to reduce the last mile of dual carriageway to a single lane, as is common practice across the motorway network of the UK.
Large notices would be required, advising drivers that the single carriageway they are entering continues for 10 miles.
Flashing lights would also reinforce this change to drivers.
Matters can only get worse when motorists are able to drive on dual carriageway from Tore roundabout, with only the roundabout at Inverness to slow them down.
I have already suggested this in an email to Fergus Ewing, the SNP’s MSP for Strathspey.
He passed it on to the police traffic experts in December 2022, but nothing appears to have happened.
Consistent use of such signage should be introduced at every point on the A9 where this change from dual to single carriageway takes place. Other ‘blackspots’ must also be examined and made safer.
Secondly, Transport Scotland has divided the A9 dualling project into several sections but this should be altered so that some shorter segments are prioritised.
Those where a long diversion is needed, should an accident occur, should be dealt with more urgently.
Two examples are the section from Dalnaspidal to Dalwhinnie, where the diversion is via Glencoe and Fort William, 141 miles rather than 97 miles by the A9, an additional 53 miles.
The other is from Carrbridge to Slochd, where the diversion is via Grantown and Forres, 62 miles rather than 20 miles by the A9, an additional 42 miles.
I was impressed by the overall plan for dualling which can’t come quickly enough.
It is my understanding that all but one sections are ‘oven ready’ to go out to tender, having been through all the legal loopholes.
All that is necessary is the funding and the commitment of the Scottish Government.
I was therefore puzzled by the appearance of roadworks this past year or so, just north of Perth, which causes some disruption to the A9 traffic at times.
This is the Northern Perth bypass which is designed to alleviate some of the traffic problems around Perth though not all the problems will disappear. This bypass was started long after the A9 dualling was in progress but progress on the A9 has now virtually stalled.
The Scottish Government seems to prioritise the relief of congestion rather than saving lives.
It is perhaps worthy of highlighting the fact that the Perth Northern bypass lies in the constituency of John Swinney, MSP…what a curious coincidence!
John Pope
Bilston
Midlothian.
* * *
Improve rail links to Highlands to stop fatalities
More investment is needed in rail links serving the Highlands. Picture: David Macleod.
It was in 1978 that I first read ‘Education and the death of love’ by Roy Stevens.
He wrote a great deal of sense about education and democracy at that time.
One statement struck me greatly and continues to haunt me today.
He wrote ‘every time you close a railway line you kill more people’.
His stark use of statistics demonstrated that closing a line put more drivers onto the road and this resulted in more deaths through road traffic accidents.
To encourage more people to travel by rail can save lives!
Of course there are other factors to consider but road deaths are now a pressing problem on the A9 and the sooner we spend our energies and resources on improving the train service the better.
George Anderson
Aviemore.
* * *
Idea of memorial for A9 victims is ‘bewildering’
I find the suggestion that a memorial for A9 casualties to be somewhat bewildering.
While accepting that redesigning some layouts and junctions is needed the A9 is not alone in that, nor is it alone on road casualities.
To single out the A9 for some form of memorial seems strange. Who should be memorialised? Can we separate those who were innocent sufferers from those who caused the incident who may also have suffered.
The approach I see in all this appears to be blaming only the road and not those using the road.
M Ross
Aviemore.
* * *
Getting left behind in the digital revolution
Life in the fast lane, where help is provided by pressing buttons for accessing certain needs, was not invented for the older generation.
The pad, the pen, envelopes and a postage stamp are contact with the outside world, helped greatly by those who sit in high places in the Strathy office.
I will never be an expert poet like Nellie McGregor, Robert Burns or William McGonagall, but these lines of doggerel might help to catch the eye of Drew Hendry who is Here To Help you, your family and your community as per his advert in the Strathy:
We don’t want to cause a fuss
But we all appreciate Dial A Bus,
So please provide a bit of hope
With parking space outside the Coop.
The message bags are very heavy,
Old legs tend to be a bit unsteady.
The journey taken across the road’s
Quite precarious with heavy loads.
Our message is ‘Simple help’s required,
Especially for those who have retired’.
Causing trouble is not our intention
But in the Coop we spend our pension.
Lindsay and Liz are so precise.
Their attitude and help is always nice,
So thank you both from all of us,
Who need to use our Dial A Bus.
Highland Council, please don’t decline:
Provide that vital new white line
With parking space for Dial A Bus
And earn the thanks of all of us.
Leonard Grassick,
Grantown.
* * *
Wind farms are long way from being green
When we are looking to buy a house or a car or find the right husband or wife, we of course seek them as ‘fit for purpose’.
Assuming we have been correct in our choices, we will have the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing we were not only right in the first place but also fortunate to have been matched up with our various needs and desires.
Mr Dermot Williamson (Strathy, 10 August), an indefatigable champion of wind turbines must believe that their desirable features include reliability, good value for money and any drawbacks are happily tolerable and acceptable.
Thus, windmills must provide adequate, reliable electric power, help to reduce our man-made carbon dioxide output with benefit to climate, both our own and the world’s. These are, hopefully, the agreed desiderata of ‘green’ renewable power generation.
Unfortunately, once account is taken of the CO2 released in their manufacturing, transport from afar, installation which demands many tonnes of concrete, servicing needing large volumes of lubricating oil and, especially, land use for the windmills and their pylons, they are not in the least green.
Their well known main problems include the littering of our scenic countryside with metallic structures which steal land vital for tourism and for farming, slaughter of avian wildlife, and noise-induced health problems for people living within earshot.
These are unacceptable features, along with 101 more harmful, damaging impacts.
Taken together, all of these very undesirable effects make electricity generation using windmills emphatically unfit for purpose.
Charles Wardrop
Viewlands Rd West
Perth.
* * *
Nearly latest casualty on A9
Shame on Patrick Harvie and the SNP. Because of his prevarication and wine bar revolutionary politics the non-dualled A9 claims yet more victims. We were nearly smashed travelling north when a car left the Ralia junction to turn south. How many more need to die or be injured for an unelected politician to make a point?
Gordon Stewart
Findhorn.
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here[2] to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.
References
- ^ Click here to sign up to our free newsletters! (www.strathspey-herald.co.uk)
- ^ here (www.strathspey-herald.co.uk)