MORE than 180 people died on roads in Wrexham, Flintshire and Chester in a decade, a new interactive ‘crash map’ has revealed.
The map shows the Flintshire stretch of the A541, which goes from Wrexham to Denbigh via Mold and is already dubbed ‘death road’ by some, saw 12 fatalities over the period and a dozen people also died on the county’s section of the A548 coast road.
In Flintshire 95 people died overall on the county’s roads between 1999 and 2010, compared to 66 in Wrexham and 23 in Cheshire West and Chester.
Cilcain councillor Owen Thomas won a battle to have the speed limit reduced on the Rhydymwyn section of the A541 two years ago but says the road is still dangerous and more needs to be done.
“It needs to be looked at,” he said. “Cars are a lot faster nowadays so the situation with traffic is completely different. They need to improve some of the corners and visibility on the road.
“It’s only Rhydymwyn and Hendre that’s had the speed limit reduced.
“The road is dangerous in a lot of areas, there have been a lot of fatalities on that road.”
The map, published on the BBC’s website, plots every death on the roads between 1999 and 2010 and includes the date and weather conditions, information about the victims and type of vehicles.
Among those who died on the A541 include a 24-year-old driver who was killed on January 17 2008 when it was raining, a 56-year-old driver on March 8 2009 when it was snowing and a male motorcyclist on Saturday, October 6 2007.
There have also been fatalities on the Wrexham stretch of the A541.
The junction between the A541 and Sydallt Lane had a cluster of three deaths, in 2003, 2004 and 2006.
Gwersyllt councillor Mike Williams, whose ward covers the junction, is hopeful works carried out there in recent years will prevent any more fatalities.
“About four years ago, there was a public outcry from people living there about the stretch which at that time was very dangerous,” he said.
“As a result of that, we approached officers at Wrexham Council and they got Welsh Government funding to improve the road in order to prevent fatalities.
“That has been reasonably successful because since the improvements the road is safer and there’s been nothing horrendous since then.”
Other blackspots in Wrexham include the A483 at Pentre and Moss Road in Gwersyllt.
Gwersyllt councillor Arfon Jones said improvements have since been made to Moss Road, where a 34-year-old motorcyclist died in 2003 and a pedestrian died in 2007.
“Street lighting has been installed along that road since the pedestrian died,” he said.
Work to reduce road deaths has also been carried out in Flintshire, including introducing lower speed limits.
Fatalities are dispersed on the map all along the A548, but the cluster between Flint and Bagillt dates to crashes prior to 2002.
Flint councillor Alex Aldridge said people are now driving more carefully along the stretch.
“I think people are more aware of the speed limits on that road, particularly between Bagillt and Flint,” he said.
“In the main the vast majority of drivers obey the speed limit. There has been a huge improvement.”
Other blackspots for road deaths in Flintshire include the A550, where 10 people died and the A55 where there were nine fatalities.
In Cheshire West and Chester blackspots include the bottom of Kelsall hill on the A54 and the Sealand Road junction with Deva Link at the Greyhound Retail Park.
More than 10 pedestrians have been injured or killed on the roads in built-up and residential areas in Chester, including Hoole, Upton, Guilden Sutton and on the Chester Business Park.
Wyn Holroyd, a representative for the city for the 20’s Plenty speed campaign, said even more accidents could be prevented if the whole of the city took action to implement a 20mph speed limit in these areas.
“20’s Plenty was set up to make us look more sensibly at travel and speed and obviously our situation on the roads has changed enormously since the 30mph speed limit was brought in in the 1930s,” said Mrs Holroyd, of Boughton.
“The places where we live aren't designed for this amount of traffic and more needs to be done to overhaul the speed at which people travel in these areas.”
In all there were 36,371 people killed on Britain’s roads between 1999 and 2010.