Topic ID 1406
Does anyone know what the traffic jams are about? Apparently there is majotr gridlock effecting Ware and Hertford. A10/A414/Bengeo/from Stevenage - both directons 5pm ish
Reply ID 17347
From the BBC website: A414 Hertfordshire - Accident on London Road both ways between the Old London Road junction and the A119 Ware Road junction in Hertford, partially blocked. Last updated: 3rd March 2006 at 16:16 Could that be tailing to the A10?
Reply ID 17348
A10, A414, A602 all very long queues London Road was/possibly still is totally closed in both directions, forcing traffic to turn around (From a relative who was coming back to Hertford Heath from Ware just after 4pm) St.Andrews Street very congested. Lower Bengeo is a car park!. Even the Traffic Police couldn't get down Nelson Street!(Me trying to be clever and beat the Jam)
Reply ID 17349
Does anyone know what has caused it?..... I am still at work waiting for a call to say when it has cleared.
Reply ID 17350
Queing all the way up North Road aswell
Reply ID 17351
Top of London Road near junction with Brookside. Closed in both directions. Looks as if a high-performance sports car hit a tree on the central reservation - at some speed judging by the state of both.
Reply ID 17352
It's taken me an hour and a half to get into Bengeo frmo the A10 - tried Rush Green after seeing the 602 was jammed, ended up going round and back up to the 602 and coming in that way. The A602 is the quicker way in, solid but at least moving...
Reply ID 17354
That would explain why Byde Street was chocka when I walked up from the station. Made me feel smugger than usual... [:D]
Reply ID 17357
took my kid 2 1/2 hours to get home from presdales..sounds like a very bad accident
Reply ID 17359
It was all great fun. Came up the A10 @ 1630, hit the 414 Rush Green tailback down the curve on the A10. Lots of break-lights & people swerving at high speed into the outside lane to avoid the queue - decided after 10 mins or so of no movement to head north, (vague ideas that Bengeo could work) Big tailback at the first Ware turn-off, trundled to next one & through Ware at walking pace to Charvills (as was) roundabout & down Baldock Street, thinking I could have sold tickets for a Go Hertfordshire Tour. Found out about this point that everything within 10 miles was gridlocked. Advised Radio 5Live & get my name read on the radio – hurrah! At John Gilpin (?) go down Ware Rd to Hertford – not a good idea. Crawl as far as Hoe Lane & have bright idea to hang a left - past Rugby Club (at this point thought goes through mind to stop off, have a couple of beers & walk: collect after Rugby tomorrow - only good option I had all evening - didn’t take it ...) Lets go thought Hertford Heath. That’ll work.... not.. Of course at the Lancaster garage roundabout there’s a group of very bored looking Police blocking the left turn down London Road. Found out that there had been a v bad accident - hope that the victim(s) are okay. We will gloss over the journey back to Hoddesdon & return (hoping that it all might have cleared…..) so an hour & a bit after start I'm on the 414 going east approaching the Rush Green again….. Moral of story – When stuck in traffic its probably best to stay where you are but if not you don’t half get to see a lot of East Herts
Reply ID 17361
And Hertbeat fm were rubbish. A friend of mine who was stuck from 3.30 kept tuning in, and there was no mention. I checked the Hertbeat website an hour later and Travel News/Roads came up with "no incident reported". I would have thought it's times like this when local radio stations could demonstrate how important they are to the local community. They might pick up a few more listeners. Instead it seems we should tune into Radio 5 Live!
Reply ID 17362
quote:Did anyone phone in and report it? I phone in once a few months ago when the A414 was jammed all the way back to Welwyn Garden City. Unkown to me the call was recorded and was playd back on air 2 minutes later.
Originally posted by nora batty
And Hertbeat fm were rubbish. A friend of mine who was stuck from 3.30 kept tuning in, and there was no mention. I checked the Hertbeat website an hour later and Travel News/Roads came up with "no incident reported". I would have thought it's times like this when local radio stations could demonstrate how important they are to the local community. They might pick up a few more listeners. Instead it seems we should tune into Radio 5 Live!
Reply ID 17363
I couldn't agree more, Nora. HertBeat let down its listeners (both of them. It doesn't deserve more.) I ended up trying to get from the police station in Ware Road to Gascoyne Way via Hoddesdon [:(] as I tried and failed with rat-run after rat-run, much like CP's description above. That narrow road from Hoddesdon through Goose Green that becomes Mangrove Road was choked with hundreds of other cars and lorries with the same idea! It is only one vehicle wide in places... I will not forget that experience in a hurry. A taxi driver told me that someone died in the accident by Brookside. There's nothing on the police website and I have no idea whether that is true.
Reply ID 17365
Hertbeat did mention it from about 4.20, when someone phoned in......too late for me.Think their main problem is that they dont answer their phone lines very often, & sending text messages while driving is not a good idea!
Reply ID 17366
quote:S'pose thats the problem about being a two-bit local station & a national. Got through to R5Live in seconds but presumably they employ an army to suppport their traffic reporter. All very well but it soon gets lost in "Snow chaos in Scotland" etc In the event (reading the other posts) unless you were some distance away to make a major detour, it wounld'nt have helped anyone much. Makes you realise just how stratigic that part of the 414 is....
Originally posted by nora batty
And Hertbeat fm were rubbish. A friend of mine who was stuck from 3.30 kept tuning in, and there was no mention. I checked the Hertbeat website an hour later and Travel News/Roads came up with "no incident reported". I would have thought it's times like this when local radio stations could demonstrate how important they are to the local community. They might pick up a few more listeners. Instead it seems we should tune into Radio 5 Live!
Reply ID 17367
I think you'll find that it was being treated as a potential fatality which means the police have to treat it as a crime scene.
Reply ID 17376
I heard it mentioned at around 3.15pm on Radio 2!
Reply ID 17377
I get the impression that if Hertbeat FM laid on helicopters and airlifted you all out of trouble it still might not have been saved from criticism. Get a grip! It's a local radio station. It wasn't responsible for you being in the place you were and getting caught in the traffic and I'm sure it wasn't responsible for the accident itself........so why blame them for your problems? When I phoned them once to report the A414 jammed for 3 miles the phone was answered by the DJ. There were no researchers like on Five Live. It's so easy to point a finger when something goes wrong.
Reply ID 17380
quote:As far as i can see from the above posts nobody is blaming Hertbeat fm for the accident or their subsequent situation. If a major incident like this happens my first reaction is to tune in to the local radio station to find out what's going on, and perhaps ease the situation for the emergency services by avoiding the area. Am I alone in expecting a local radio station to provide information on local issues? As a local radio station, its USP (unique selling point) is that it is more concerned with issues affecting a very localised audience than other stations. If it can't do this then it may as well close down as it can not afford to compete on any other level. It won't increase its market share (and therefore won't increase advertising revenue, and therefore won't ever develop) if it doesn't get something simple like this right. I think the criticism is justified.
Originally posted by Ewoowar
I get the impression that if Hertbeat FM laid on helicopters and airlifted you all out of trouble it still might no have been saved from criticism. Get a grip! It's a local radio station. It wasn't responsible for you being in the place you were and getting caught in the traffic and I'm sure it wasn't responsible for the accident itself........so why blame them for your problems? It's so easy to point a finger when something goes wrong.
Reply ID 17382
I know of the person who was driving the car. The passenger is in intensive care so it was pretty serious accident. Unfortunately, due to the way the local road network is, one accident can have massive knock-on effects. Wishing those involved a speedy recovery.
Reply ID 17384
Signs have now gone up at the scene appealing for witnesses
Reply ID 17386
quote:Perhaps I would be more likely to criticise if I had been stuck in the jams myself! [:I]
Originally posted by nora battyquote:As far as i can see from the above posts nobody is blaming Hertbeat fm for the accident or their subsequent situation. If a major incident like this happens my first reaction is to tune in to the local radio station to find out what's going on, and perhaps ease the situation for the emergency services by avoiding the area. Am I alone in expecting a local radio station to provide information on local issues? As a local radio station, its USP (unique selling point) is that it is more concerned with issues affecting a very localised audience than other stations. If it can't do this then it may as well close down as it can not afford to compete on any other level. It won't increase its market share (and therefore won't increase advertising revenue, and therefore won't ever develop) if it doesn't get something simple like this right. I think the criticism is justified.
Originally posted by Ewoowar
I get the impression that if Hertbeat FM laid on helicopters and airlifted you all out of trouble it still might no have been saved from criticism. Get a grip! It's a local radio station. It wasn't responsible for you being in the place you were and getting caught in the traffic and I'm sure it wasn't responsible for the accident itself........so why blame them for your problems? It's so easy to point a finger when something goes wrong.
Reply ID 17387
I wasn't stuck in the traffic jam. It didn't affect me at all. I was trying to find out what was happening for several people who rang me from their cars.
Reply ID 17392
The latest information from the police is that the vehicle, a Capman XJ13R (kit car version of an AC Cobra) was travelling uphill when it left the carriageway and collided with a tree and a lampost before ending up in the other side of the dual carriageway. The 45 year old Ware man driving sustained minor injuries, whilst his 26 year old female passenger from London Colney is currently in a serious condition in the QEII. Police are appealling for witnesses.
Reply ID 17551
There's something very odd about this. It was not a fatal accident, nor was there even any serious damage to other vehicles or property except a tree and a lamp-post. It was only a light kit car, that would have taken a few men a few minutes to move. No-one other than the car's occupants were injured. Both occupants of the car are still alive and able to talk. In short, a fairly nasty, but nonetheless everyday accident. Why was a major road artery closed for 4 and a half hours, disrupting traffic for miles around? Why do the police seem so desperate in their appeals to get witnesses?
Reply ID 17553
quote:Perhaps because it was a potential act of dangerous driving that resulted in someone being seriously injured?
Originally posted by Pez
Why do the police seem so desperate in their appeals to get witnesses?
Reply ID 17555
If it was a kit car was it a)taxed? b)insured? c)road worthy? If not and the passenger was to have died, whould this not lead to heavier prosecution. Hence the reason the scene had to be preserved?
Reply ID 17556
Maybe the driver's smudged eyeliner led the police to believe that they were not fully in control of the car at the time [;)]
Reply ID 17557
quote:I beleive an earlier posting stated that the passenger was taken into Intensive Care. If the injuries sustained were serious enough for that measure, they may have been serious enough to have killed or permanently damaged the passenger. Given this and our increasingly litigious society the preservation of the scene is an understandable precaution despite the mayhem it caused. If the passenger had died the police would look like fools trying to present a case with little/no evidence. We are also not privy to the actual events (unless anyone on the forum witnessed the accident) and are living on hearsay. Accident rubberneckers also contribute to cr*p traffic.
Originally posted by Victor Meldrew
If ...the passenger was to have died
Reply ID 17572
I heard that the injuries were serious enough for the passenger to require emergency surgery at the scene.
Reply ID 17583
I think we need to very careful about speculating on what has happened. Acknowledged it isn't normal to appeal for witnesses after a non-fatal crash, but we need make sure comments don't prejudice a police investigation or potential court case as there is clearly more to this than meets the eye.