A2070 in Ashford named one of Kent's most dangerous roads with A2 and A229 also blackspots for crashes
06:00, 14 August 2021
One of Kent's most dangerous roads, the A2070 runs from Ashford to Brenzett linking the M20 and A259 and in recent years has become a blackspot for serious and deadly collisions.
In the last 10 years five people have died and 12 have been seriously injured on the 13-mile stretch, with some victims spending years in recovery. Laoise Gallagher meets survivor Rowena Owen and finds out what needs to be done.
Rowena Owen spent six weeks in hospital following a crash on the A2070 last August.
In August 2020, Rowena Owen from Canterbury was involved in a horror collision that left her with long-term injuries.
The business owner says she and the other driver were travelling at around 60mph in the moments prior to the crash.
Firefighters took 55 minutes to cut through the 40-year-old’s wrecked Audi A6.
She was airlifted to King’s College Hospital in London for urgent treatment and would spend the next six weeks there.
She then had to learn how to walk again at the same time as her young son Harvey.
Rowena said: "I remember the day very well. It was a really sunny August day, I was over visiting a friend in Rye and within five minutes of leaving the accident happened.
"My last memory is looking up at a car flying into me. We were both doing quite high speeds of around 60mph.
"The car was obliterated and I was stuck for an hour and had to be cut out and airlifted to Kings.
"My left leg was basically in half and my right leg was broken at the femur. I broke a bit of my neck, I had a stomach injury, embolism on the lung, I suffered a head injury and spent six weeks in hospital. I’m still recovering a year on."
Although the exact cause of the crash remains unknown, Rowena has spoken out on the dangerous nature of the A2070.
She continued: "When I was looking up my own crash online I found countless horrific accidents. Obviously, there is a problem there.
"I think it could be because you can’t really escape the road. You’re kind of going down a ravine with a kerb on one side and fields on the other so you have a choice of crashing into a car or rolling down a hill upside down.
"You’re in a really pretty area and it’s very easy to be distracted along there.
"You’ve got people who are commuters going along a very fast road - probably at the end of work - who have got to be somewhere and rushing."
There have been two serious crashes like Rowena's on the A2070 in the past two months.
On Saturday, June 5, a driver in his thirties was left fighting for his life following a collision at the entrance to the Designer Outlet.
The vehicles were travelling in the same direction towards the roundabout junction with Norman Road. He was airlifted to a London hospital.
Then on Sunday, July 18, a motorcyclist died of his injuries, 11 days after being involved in a crash on the road.
The victim's blue Suzuki GSXR 100 motorbike collided with a silver Peugeot.
Both vehicles were attempting to take the Hamstreet slip road when the collision occurred.
Speeding is also an issue on the stretch. In February officers from Kent Police’s Roads Safety Unit were carrying out checks in Ashford and Romney Marsh where concerns had previously been raised.
During these checks on routes including the A2070 and the A259 25 vehicles were stopped in one day.
Cllr Trish Cornish (Ashford Independent) said: "I’ve suggested cameras because they do stop people from speeding - if they think they’re going to get fines or points on their licence they’re going to stop.
"The Department for Transport are responsible for this, it’s almost like a last resort because it’s expensive and they prefer to do everything else they possibly can first.
"There’s going to be traffic lights at McDonald’s instead of a roundabout so that slows that bit down."
She continued: "If necessary I’m prepared to pay for this out of my ward grant, even though it’s not totally my ward. I’d like to think that we would all contribute, this is a cross-party thing.
"It’s really a case of speed and I think if it were down to me I’d probably have the speed limit down to 50mph."
The A2070 is not the only road causing tragedy for Kent drivers and their families.
According to the AA Charitable Trust, Kent is home to two of the most dangerous rural roads in the country - the A229 in Maidstone and the A2.
Between 2013 and 2018 there were 175 collisions on the 22 miles of the A229, and 764 accidents on the A2 from Dover to London.
Peter Phillips, of Highways England, said: "Safety is Highways England's top priority and we remain committed to safety on the A2070 and A2 as we do on all our roads. Both these roads generally perform well on safety.
"Nevertheless, we are never complacent and we recognise the concern that people have expressed.
"We'll continue to keep the safety on the stretch of road under continual review and work with the local community on any future safety improvements."
But Neil Greig, a road safety expert at IAM RoadSmart, says while highlighting accident blackspots is important the issue goes deeper.
He said: "Ultimately there’s no such thing as a killer road as such, it is all about driver behaviour so it’s about the drivers themselves as opposed to the road.
'There's a certain percentage of drivers who will always take an opportunity to speed when they see it...'
"You can always improve a road, you can always re-engineer it, you can always make it better but the vast majority of crashes are down to human error.
"I think having a discussion about these particular roads and actually highlighting certain sections is very important because people then go on that road start to think.
"The problem is, there’s a certain percentage of drivers who will always take an opportunity to speed when they see it, so if they see a straight and quiet road they will tend to go a bit faster.
"There’s another bigger group of people who tend just to follow the herd, and if everyone’s going fast, they go fast. At the moment road safety isn’t actually a priority for the police.
"The Home Office are looking into this and we hope that in the next few weeks we might see an announcement which puts road safety and roads policing much further up the priority list for local police forces."
Neil Greig believes there is no such thing as a killer road
A Kent County Council spokesman said: “It is KCC’s top priority to make sure our entire road network is safe for everyone that uses it.
“We work in partnership with Highways England, Kent Police and Kent Fire and Rescue Service to ensure the safety of all our routes.
“While KCC is responsible for the A229, our partners at Highways England manage the maintenance and safety of the A2070 and A2.
“We have recently concluded a consultation on KCC’s Vision Zero road safety strategy which aims for as close to no deaths on our roads as possible by 2050, with a steady reduction every year until we reach that point.
“It is key we continue to understand the most effective measures to reduce the number of fatal and serious injuries on these routes and encourage all road users to take responsibility.”
