In Saturday's Daily Echo, reporter Claire Moriarty took a look at some of the A36 accident black spots which have claimed the lives of 15 people. Today she highlights three other dangerous sites which have helped the notorious road to earn the nickname "Death Valley"...
BUNCHES of now-lopsided flowers hang from a signpost at the side of the notorious A36.
As we continue our tour of the road's danger hot spots, they are a jolting reminder of the grim
consequences of what we are being shown.
The flowers mark the spot where two elderly people died in a horrific eight-vehicle smash on the A36 through Wellow.
The accident sparked a Daily Echo campaign to boost safety measures and put an end to the unnecessary carnage on the two-mile stretch.
Now A36 residents' association chairman Alan Clark is taking us through his top five "Death Valley" hot spots.
The first two included the BP Garage at Partridge Hill and Plaitford's Shoe Inn, with its entrance just yards from the speeding traffic.
This second section of the road, dubbed one of the most dangerous in Hampshire, takes in the Blackhill junction, where the minibus carrying cancer patients back from a day trip was in the deadly multiple-vehicle
collision.
Starting at the Red Rover pub, we head east out of Wellow towards the M27.
n Red Rover pub, Wellow
Two young mums pushing their children in front of them walk along the narrow pavement by the pub as we stand watching the traffic.
As they creep over the blind brow of the hill, an articulated lorry comes thundering towards them and swerves out into the middle of the road as the driver spots the wary pedestrians.
Had there been a car coming the other way, the results of the driver's reaction could have been disastrous.
"There's no warning sign as you come up to the top of the hill," said former policeman and temporary tour guide Alan.
"We live just over the back of here and I remember a head-on collision between two cars at the brow of the hill.
"You just can't see anything coming, and it's a very narrow road.
"You just need somebody to be slightly off-line."
The pub's car park entrance is only metres from the blind hill. Drivers turning left on to the A36 have little chance of seeing vehicles coming over the brow until it's too late.
Wellow roundabout
This roundabout, the only one in the stretch from the motorway through to Plaitford, joins Canada Road to the New Forest with Lower Common Road, the main route into Wellow village.
It also has the sole crossing - a tiny refuge in the middle of the road.
Alan said: "Would you let your son or daughter stand in a 2ft gap waiting to cross while articulated lorries hurtle past? This is how it's been for the last 20 years."
He says buses drop scores of schoolchildren on the south side of the road, leaving them to cross two lanes of heavy traffic unassisted.
"The shops, the post office, the playing fields, the school are all on the other side and this is the only crossing," said Alan. "It's lethal."
He also fears that lorries skirting the roundabout have limited vision, leaving crossing pedestrians in an even more dangerous position.
"If you leave the bushes on the roundabout there, drivers can't see," he said. "If you take them away, they go faster."
Whinwhistle Road junction
As we drive from the roundabout to Alan's next hot spot, he reels off the road's catalogue of fatalities - a head-on collision here, a driver running off the road into a garage there and the horrific crash at Blackhill Road junction.
The T-junction at Whinwhistle Road is the spot where crashes have rocketed to ten times the national average.
Cars slowing on the single-lane carriageway to turn right into Whinwhistle Road trigger a concertina of smashes behind them as speeding vehicles fail to slow in time.
Alan said: "Cars have just come off the motorway and come racing up to this part of the road at 60 or 70mph."
The Daily Echo wants to see speed limits cut, cameras installed along the route and safe roundabouts and crossings installed.
The A36 is notching up its number of victims while highways bosses do more surveys, discuss the road's management and work on cosmetic
improvements.
If you back the Daily Echo campaign for action, sign the petition on page 9 of today's paper (1 July) and send it to Romsey MP Sandra Gidley.
She is behind our bid for a safer A36 and has promised to present the petition in Parliament.
If you have a story to tell about the road, e-mail Claire Moriarty using the link above.
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