ROAD ACCIDENTS, SUTTON BYPASS (Hansard, 29 July 1958)

§ Mr. Richard Sharples (Sutton and Cheam)

I am grateful for the opportunity which has been given to me tonight to raise a matter which is of particular importance in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, namely, the number of traffic accidents which have taken place on the Sutton bypass.

The Sutton bypass was opened in 1928 at a time when there was still an area which was not built up between the town of Sutton and the village of Cheam. At that time Sutton and Cheam had not been amalgamated into a single urban district, and it was not until six years later in 1934 that the district was made into a municipal borough. After the construction of this road, ribbon development was allowed to take place along almost the whole length of the bypass, and today the entire area which lies between Sutton and Cheam is completely built up. The Sutton bypass now bisects the Borough itself, passing right through the centre of the constituency which I represent.

In addition to the building which has 1319 taken place on either side of the bypass, the volume of traffic has increased enormously on the bypass itself by reason of the development which has taken place in areas further to the south; and traffic coming from London has, therefore, to pass along the bypass to go into these areas in southern Surrey and Sussex.

The bypass remains exactly as it did when it was first opened in 1928, and it has not been improved in any substantial way in order to take account of modern traffic needs. It starts off as a four-lane highway, and then at a point at which there is a dangerous intersection and a hump-backed bridge it suddenly turns into a three-lane road. There is no central division between the lanes on the four-lane section, and there is a very unsatisfactory system of bollards and lamp posts which are spaced at irregular intervals, and which are held by many people to be more frequently the cause of accidents than a means of assisting in their prevention.

As this road passes through the centre of the borough there is, of course, a considerable volume of local traffic which has to pass from one side of the bypass to the other and also a considerable amount travelling along the bypass itself for short lengths. Its total length is less than three-and-a-half miles and there are no fewer than thirty-six side roads abutting directly on the main road, whilst at only three of the intersections are there traffic lights.

A very high proportion of the accidents on the bypass have involved traffic that has been coming in from one of the side roads or trying to leave the bypass and turning right in doing so. I have examined the records of accidents and it is astonishing how many accidents have been caused in this way by traffic turning right.

The number of accidents—which continues to rise—is a cause of considerable concern to my constituents. During the period June, 1955, to May, 1958—for which I have been supplied with all the details of all the accidents involving injury or death—there have been 148 such accidents in which seven people have been killed and 227 injured. A high proportion were in fact seriously injured. That number of accidents is quite staggering considering the short length of road involved.

1320 Almost every week one reads reports in the local Press of the mounting toll of dead and injured on this section of road. A very high proportion of the victims are people living in my constituency who have to pass from one side of the road to the other in their normal daily business.

When the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee was considering the introduction of a 40 m.p.h. speed limit it included part of the Sutton bypass in Part B of its recommendation in Appendix Three of its Report. In page 47 of its report, headed Suggested modifications on other roads brought to the Committee's attention (1) Roads for which a 40 m.p.h. speed limit is suggested for consideration in paragraph 16, it suggested Dunstan's Hill, and the Sutton and Cheam A217 from Collingwood Road to Alberta Avenue, whose present status is unrestricted.

In the main part of its recommendations in paragraph 168 it said: The conclusions of the Committee and of the sub-group, set out in Appendices 2 and 3, were reached only after inspection of the roads and consideration of such information as was available to it as to traffic volumes, incidence of accidents, etc., and of the suggestions made to the Committee in evidence. Deliberately, however, there had been no attempt to fix the exact details of the proposed limits until the local authorities concerned have had a chance to express their views. On the publication of that Report the Borough Council of Sutton and Cheam expressed its views in no uncertain terms. On 24th October, 1956, it recommended in a letter to the Surrey County Council that the portion of the bypass road between Sutton Common Road and Hillside Road be included in the limit of 40 m.p.h., but unfortunately this proposal did not receive the support of the County Council. On 31st December, 1956, a letter from the Town Clerk of the Sutton and Cheam Borough Council was sent to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. After expressing disappointment at the lack of support from the Surrey County Council, the letter concluded by saying: I am to advise you that the Council are of the opinion that a speed limit of 40 miles-per-hour should be imposed between Sutton Common Road and Hillside Road. Since that time, the number of traffic accidents on this road has continued to rise. On 2nd May this year, a further approach was made. The Borough Council wrote direct to the Surrey County Council, and also to the Ministry with a 1321 request that a speed limit of 40 m.p.h. should be introduced on that portion of the bypass from its commencement at the Rosehill roundabout to its junction with Hillside Road, Cheam. The Rosehill roundabout is where the bypass begins. A speed limit covering that portion of the road would take in the section from the beginning of the bypass until after the worst points for traffic crossing it are passed.

To the best of my knowledge, there the matter rests. The volume of traffic using the bypass and trying to cross from one side to the other continues to increase, and the toll of accidents continues to rise. Yet the bypass remains unrestricted, without, to any substantial degree, having been modernised or brought up to the standard which modern traffic requires. Every week, I read in the local Press reports of accidents involving death or injury to my constituents.

I ask my hon. Friend to consider very carefully what I have said tonight, and I want him to do two things. First, will he see whether it is possible for a 40 m.p.h. limit to be introduced, at the very least on the busiest section of the road to which I referred, before the toll of accidents rises still further? Secondly, will he examine carefully the whole design of this dangerous and out-of-date road and consider what can be done to bring it up to the standard required for modern traffic conditions?

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) on his good fortune in securing the Adjournment debate tonight to ventilate the complaint of Sutton and Cheam and the problem on the Sutton bypass. As I listened to his criticisms of this bypass and of its construction—how it was built in 1928, and is today appallingly out of date—I wished that there was no other road in the country which had been built before 1928. Bless my soul: there are many which were built in about 1828 and we are still having to do the best we can with them. The fact is that, although this road is not perfect, compared with average standards it is a very modern road indeed, and I wish that we had no worse bypass than this in or about many of our towns. Leaving that aside, I sympathise with my 1322 hon. Friend very much in the accident record on this road. It is high, and it it a matter for concern. I sympathise with his reaction and his wish to see something done to reduce the level of accidents there. It really does not follow, however, that a 40 m.p.h. speed limit such as he requests would necessarily have this result.

I will say a word or two about speed limits generally. There is a continuous demand for new speed limits or extended speed limits all over the country—usually, of course, from people asking for 30 m.p.h. limits, but now for 40 m.p.h. speed limits also. I should not exaggerate if I said that, if we in the Ministry agreed to every request for a 30 m.p.h. limit or a 40 m.p.h. speed limit which came to us. it would not be many years before all the roads of the country were covered by either 30 m.p.h. limits or 40 m.p.h. limits and we were more or less back to the position we were in in the 'thirties when there was a general speed limit of 30 m.p.h. over the country.

The fact is that speed limits are effective only if they can be enforced; and, with the best will in the world, the police cannot enforce them—and they are certainly most conscientious in trying to enforcethem—unless the limits command the co-operation of the average motorist. If he accepts them as being reasonable, then the exceptional motorist who disobeys the law is easily picked out. I assure my hon. Friend that we in the Ministry must be most economical in the use of this very valuable road safety measure if we are not literally to debase the currency and lose the co-operation of road drivers generally.

The 40 m.p.h. limit was introduced with this very thought in mind; for, although the 30 m.p.h. limit is well observed in the middle of towns, it is not so well observed on the periphery. There has been an increasing enforcement problem over recent years, and it was then considered that it might be possible to introduce an intermediate stage between the 30 m.p.h. limit and derestriction; that is, on roads not sufficiently built up for the average motorist to co-operate with the 30 m.p.h. limit, but still not open enough for complete derestriction.

We started the experiment last March, to see if it was possible to introduce this new feature which would result in a better observance of the limit, with 1323 general co-operation from drivers and a less difficult task for the police. But already we have had complaints that in the use of the 40 m.p.h. limit we have made fresh impositions rather than relaxations; in other words, we have imposed more 40 m.p.h. limits on previously derestricted roads than we have relaxed by going from 30 to 40 m.p.h. That is what is stated to have happened in this process. Therefore, we are in danger of defeating our own ends unless we are very careful where we impose these 40 m.p.h. limits. If we are to get any value at all out of speed limits nationally we have to be very cautious about imposing new ones.

The London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee has been most helpful by making a most careful survey of the Greater London area in an effort to get value out of the experiment, and this Sutton bypass road, south from Rosehill roundabout is an open stretch of road; the first open stretch for drivers coming out of London and except for the railway bridge, south of the Cheam road, it is a four-lane road throughout. Visibility is good, and it would be very difficult to get the average motorist to give a reasonable degree of co-operation to the speed limit suggested. It is a class one road and, throughout discussions, the Surrey County Council has advised against a speed limit, no doubt for the reasons which I have mentioned.

The fact that the accident record is a high one is a matter for concern, but I would point out that of the 35 injury accidents which have occurred in the last six months on the whole three-and-a-half miles, no fewer than 14 were due to motorists turning right without exercising sufficient care. A good deal of the trouble is due to the junctions. There is, however, very little to show that speed was the primary cause of the accidents. Our observations on the road confirm this and indicate that traffic usually travels there between 40 and 50 m.p.h., not at very high speeds.

We have tried to do something to help at the main road junctions. Traffic lights have recently been modified to include an all-red phase, which will help pedestrians and turning traffic, and I hope that we shall see some benefit from that in the coming months. The installations 1324 in the centre of the carriageway have caused trouble, and except at the road junctions they have all now been removed; these must of course be left to help pedestrians who are crossing.

I accept that the road is not perfect, judged by modern standards. There is not sufficient carriageway width for a central reserve and two two-lane carriageways. The cost of widening the road to give that would be very heavy and there is no immediate prospect of it with the huge arrears of road work which we have to carry out. We have established a new experimental island layout at the Brighton Road junction and I hope that it may be the forerunner of improved design of islands at other junctions on the road.

It is true that in the Report of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee on the lengths of road which should be considered, this length was included for consideration for a 40 m.p.h. limit, but it was included only for consideration. The fact is that that Committee has twice considered it, in two different schedules, and in the event has decided not to include it in either. The fact that it did not advise us to put a 40 m.p.h. limit on this length of road, combined with the Surrey County Council's opposition to a limit, must weigh heavily in the scales against the view expressed by my hon. Friend, which, I know, Sutton and Cheam Borough Council strongly holds.

This Adjournment debate tonight is the first time that my hon. Friend has brought the matter to my attention. Although I cannot give him any immediate hope of a 40 m.p.h. limit there, I undertake, now that he has represented it to me so cogently and eloquently, to watch the situation. I undertake to have it considered again when we review the working of the 40 m.p.h. limit at the end of the experimental period, which we shall do in the next six or twelve months, and when we consider whether is should be extended elsewhere and what provision is needed in the London area. That I will certainly do and I will give full weight to my hon. Friend's representations and to the strongly-held views of the Sutton and Cheam Borough Council.