I have written to the Chief Constable to enquire what is the policy of the police for leaving an accident scene in a potentially dangerous situation.
At around 2.15 on Saturday 9 March I was on my way home on the A508, there is a temporary traffic light to facilitate gas pipe works by Cadent. A short stretch of road is single carriageway.
Arriving at this area there was a police car with policeman on the phone. A traffic light had been collided with by a high sided vehicle and was in pieces. I went through, other cars were attempting to get through the other end as they had a green light. Another police car was seen further up the road and a lorry parked up with hazard lights on.
At 7pm I went to Milton Keynes, passed the same point with green light and met a car coming the other way. The light was in the verge. No replacement light had been put in place. The police had clearly left the area with a potentially dangerous situation on the A508 that could have given rise to a head on collision.
Why?
Update 28 March – response from Northants Police
Dear Councillor McCord,
Thank you for your recent letter to Mr Balhatchet, he has passed it to myself to review the incident and circumstances you reported. I apologise for the time it has taken for me to provide you with a response. I wanted to speak with the Officers and the Force Control Room.
The officers who attended have confirmed that they felt the scene of the road traffic collision was safe, they had monitored it for around 60 minutes and the traffic passing through were doing so safely and without further incident. They recognised that one set of temporary traffic lights were not serviceable, this was laid down on the grass verge to stop confusion, however due to the nature of the road, which had clear view for drivers, the presence of other signage, cones and a further set of temporary lights it was clear to road users that 1 lane of traffic would be held at the lights, whilst on red, which would allow the other lane to proceed. In addition, vehicles were slowing to around 20MPH which was a natural result of the placement of cones and signage. Both officers stated that it would have seemed impossible for 2 cars to have a head on collision at 60MPH if drivers were approaching safely according to the signs. They would not have resumed from this incident if they felt a further hazard had been present.
Street Doctor were contacted immediately from the scene by one of the officers and this was also checked and confirmed with the Force Control Room. There were further calls received to the control room from members of the public reporting the traffic light issues. Whilst continuing to try resolve this, one of the call handlers when speaking to Street Doctor were advised that the traffic lights belonged to Cadent Gas. Therefore, Cadent Gas were called who advised they would attend within 2 hours.
Due to the delay a further call was made to Cadent Gas who advised they had handed it over to Go Traffic Management. Which again was followed up by the Control Room through Cadent Gas and Street Doctor.