Four-year campaign pays off as average speed cameras installed on Rugby main road

Residents whose ability to leave or return to their estate has been a nightmare because of speeding traffic have been celebrating this week after new average speed cameras had an immediate impact.
One of the new average speed cameras in place on the A426 between junction one of the M6 and the A5.One of the new average speed cameras in place on the A426 between junction one of the M6 and the A5.
One of the new average speed cameras in place on the A426 between junction one of the M6 and the A5.

The dangers of getting onto or leaving the A426 quickly became apparent to Sam Geehan when she moved to the Coton House Estate in February 2018.

The main road they have to use to go anywhere is busy for much of the day and night as traffic heads between junction one of the M6 and the A5.

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Sam told the Advertiser: “I started writing to the council back in 2018 about the safety of this road. It was like a gamble with your life every time you came out of the estate or tried to get back in. Cars and lorries hurtling down the road and around the bend at well over 60 mph. My daughter had not long passed her test and I was terrified of her leaving the house."

She said people wanting to go to Lutterworth would never attempt to make the necessary right turn but would turn left and go round the roundabout at the motorway to head north.

Despite what she described as many knockbacks, she found support from county Cllr Adrian Warwick and former borough Cllr Leigh Hunt, who she said got the ball rolling with their conversations with highways.

The opening of the Moto services seemed to make matters worse but also seemed to offer hope that it would change the situation, a scenario Cllr Warwick told her about earlier this year.

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The A426 going past the Coton House estate was selected by the county council to be one of four stretches of road to get average speed cameras, in an announcement made in June. Also making that list from Rugby borough was the A428 through Binley Woods.And the wait came to an end when the cameras went up between the M6 and A5 at the end of last week, the string of bright yellow columns already having an impact.

Sam added: “It may have taken four years but it has happened and we are thrilled. Some people may say and have said that 60 is still too fast. I agree but what I have already noticed is a slowing down of traffic in general thanks to the stretch of cameras on the road. The people that live on this estate feel far more confident and happier to enter and exit it.

"I also want to thank Cllr Warwick for all his hard work and the others who helped. What made it feel special was he didn’t give up.”

At the time of the announcement in June, the county council said the four routes had been chosen, ‘Because a high number of personal injury collisions caused by excessive vehicle speeds have occurred here. Over a five year period, 129 personal injury collisions have occurred along these routes’. 

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It added that research showed that the average speed cameras are very effective at helping reduce vehicle speeds and improving driver behaviour. It quoted analysis that found that on average, the number of fatal and serious collisions decreases by 36 per cent after average speed cameras are introduced, while personal injury collisions of all severities are reduced by 16 per cent.

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