Stick to the Highway Code

I agree with 100 per cent of every fact he mentions regarding the safety of the A21.

I have been using the A21 London to Hastings road since 1952, sixty years weekly, if not daily. I am still alive and not injured. I have seen snow and black ice during the sixty winters.

I am a retired Class I driver/rider advanced police driver, holding an HGV (II) and PSV (I) licence and since 1982, commercially driving a PSV coach on the A21 during the day and night.

It’s not the road causing the accidents, it is the way some drivers wish to drive, impatient and aggressively.

The Tonbridge and Pembury by-passes a dual carriageway. I have seen drivers exceeding the national speed limits, only metres behind the vehicle in front, flashing their headlights for the vehicle in front to pull over, often in heavy rain and in the dark. This is a recipe for a serious accident to occur.

There is a series of double white lines between Lamberhurst and Hastings and returning late from London driving a coach full of passengers, I can say regularly a car will overtake on a single white line on a bend because the driver is impatient and cannot wait.

During my traffic patrol duties in North London, I dealt with hundreds of personal injuries, accidents and would estimate 90 per cent of them were down to bad driving by the drivers.

Consequently I say the A21 is as safe as any other road in Europe. It’s some of the drivers who use it who are at fault.

Conform to the traffic law and the Highway Code and stay alive.

Phill Williams

The Green

Catsfield