Cat and Fiddle
 

It seems that the Cat and Fiddle road, the A537, is Britain's most dangerous road.
However, if you remove from the figures those deaths/serious injuries involving motorbikes, it's one of the safest. About 75% are from two wheeled brethren.
BBC NEWS | UK | 'Most dangerous' road pinpointed

Its comes to no surprise to those of us who have been there.

Its got amazingly wild and twisty fast corners which attract so many people who just havnt the skill or sense to ride them..

Plus theres a pub ;)

Not sure motorcyclists would see crash barriers as an aid to safety, maybe they should replace them with hay bails. :)

Tim

Bouncy castles. That's what you need. A line of them on the outside of the bends.

Lies, damn lies etc
 

Best leave it alone and the natural culling of the species will continue.
There is supposed to be a 50 MPH limit there nowadays, with lots of police presence for the weekends.

Anyway, it is one more statistic that will be used to justify more controls on riding bikes - no one in these statistics looks for how many bikes were taken out by cars etc.

Rode the cat and fiddle last week en route home from wales - can't say I was that impressed.
Very busy, policeed very heavily, blanket 50mph speed limit....
Much better roads in wales to be honest - try the elan valley road...makes the cat and fiddle look tame and un-adventurous

There's no such thing as a dangerous road.It doesn't get up and bite you suddenly,it just lies there motionless for year after year.It's the misuse of the road that is dangerous.If you took away all the speed limits,crash barriers,etc..and replaced them with sharpened steel spikes pointing into the direction of the oncoming traffic,i think the accident rate would FALL dramatically......!





It 'aint the fall from the 16th floor that kills you,it's the concerete at the bottom.

Maybe you ought to speak with the BBC, I was quoting them. I'm sure they'd appreciate correcting their mistake.
"is Britain's most dangerous road,"

There you have it:

"Cat and Fiddle has statistically significant number of deaths involving motorcylists, but links to road design unproven" or "M-25 has most deaths because it has significantly high traffic volume and is quite long" are non starters for newspaper headlines and radio/TV news tag lines. They'd rather have "Killer road report" or "Death bikers heartache".

The Cat and Fiddle is simply famous. If they blew it up tomorrow the volunteers for the organ donor schemes would simply congregate round some other road. If they banned bikes they'd get fast cars or take up chainsaw juggling. If people want to kill themselves rather than live in padded boxes until they die of boredom they'll find a way. Thats the part the safety people can't see and statistics can't show. If the highways agency were sensible they'd simply excluded bikes from all considerations on that road because they are a known special factor in the stats. Engineers leave special factors to the pschycologists to sort out!

I've ridden the Cat and Fiddle often enough to know it's no great fun or challenge. Any fool can ride a Sportsbike down it or up it and get good angles of lean, high speeds etc. Why people want to do this every Sunday or Bank holiday in flagrent breach of various laws, risking their licenses and the lives of people round them I can't figure, but if they want to, let 'em and enforce the laws as possible with the resources available.

The road outside my house is a 30 zone. The old dear next door speeds all the time (does 40 regardless of road or conditions) and crashes about once a year, usually within a few miles of home. Statistically they should ban anyone over 60 driving on our street and fit camera's to enforce the limit, but that's never going to show up in government figures or on the BBC! Local traffic patrols used to caution her but they've all gone now.

Andy