Mary Tavy Parish Council has enlisted the support of county councillor Philip Sanders to lobby the county council’s highways department for an intermediate 40mph limit past a notorious right-hand turn by the Mary Tavy Inn which has seen many accidents — the most recent being just a few weeks ago. The parish council has also secured support from borough councillor Terry Pearce, who along with Cllr Sanders came to the meeting of the parish council on Tuesday last week (September 14) to hear concerns.
This follows an accident outside the Mary Tavy Inn on the Lane Head turning to Horndon several weeks ago.
At present this stretch has a 60mph limit, but councillors want to see it become 40mph from the ‘Welcome to Mary Tavy’ sign at the Tavistock end of the village all the way up to where the 30mph limit starts beside Station Road. To add weight to their cause, the council is asking people to keep a log of any accidents or near misses on the stretch of road.
Parish clerk Katherine Anness said: ‘It is quite a busy junction. If you live in Horndon you use that junction, and you have to turn down there to get to the parish cemetery and the church. If you go to turn right off the main road, there is no box to wait in.
‘It is just dangerous basically. This isn’t the first accident, there was quite a nasty one a while back. We would like to see the speed limit of 40mph start from the “Welcome to Mary Tavy” sign which is before the Mary Tavy Inn and the Horndon junction, up to where the 30mph speed restriction starts beside the Station Road turning, so that it goes 60-40-30, as it does at the Okehampton end of the village.
‘We believe it would calm the traffic down. Going from 60 to 30mph is too big a leap. As soon as you hit 30mph, coming from the Tavistock direction, you straight away come up to the village amenities. Thirty seconds later, there is the post office on the left and shortly afterwards there is there is a pedestrian crossing outside the methodist church. There is not enough time for traffic travelling at 60mph to slow down before pedestrians start to cross the A386 to access amenities such as the post office/shop on one side of the road and the children’s playground, village hall, recreation ground and allotments on the other side.’
Cllr Sanders said most of the problems occurred with traffic travelling from Tavistock shooting over the hill and around the bend too fast.
‘The junction by the Mary Tavy Inn is responsible for quite a lot of tail-end shunts, drivers turning right and people hitting them from behind. I think it is worth trying to do something because the number of accidents is quite alarming.
‘They don’t show up in statistics, because the police only record accidents where there are personal injuries, but nethertheless these accidents cause a lot of problems. People get whiplash injuries later, and they are expensive from an insurance point of view as well as disrupting people’s lives.’
He said he was also suggesting anti-slip paint on the road surface. It comes down to bad driving. We just need to do something to get people to wake up and take more care.’