At around 1.30am last night/this morning, I was awoken from a sound sleep by an almighty crash from outside. It’s the kind of sound you know is so, so, wrong. On examining the scene it became clear that a Toyota had hit the metal barrier opposite my house, chopped a concrete post in half, lost it’s bumper, rode up the barrier and then buried itself into my neighbours Clio – writing both cars off.

How the car hasn’t flipped onto it’s roof or smashed into my own car, I will never know. How the occupants survived the incident, only they know that.

For far too long we’ve had to put up with heavy traffic on Seedley Park Road, if it’s not the heavy goods vehicles delivering materials to the new Willow Tree Primary School currently undergoing construction a few yards from my house, it’s speeding ‘boy racers’ who see my street as a race track and speed bumps as nothing more than a challenge.

The junction outside my house is a nightmare. Clearly, the design looked great on a piece of paper, but in the real world – it just does not work. Anything larger than a family saloon car must drive onto the wrong side of the road to turn right, lest they hit the illuminated barrier in the middle of the road. Most of the HGVs that turn from Glendinning Street onto Seedley Park Road, block the road trying to make it around the tight corner (whilst performing the manouvre on the wrong side of the road).

Everyone survived last night’s accident, but how long before a speeding car or HGV kills a child on Seedley Park Road? I worry it could happen.

That’s why over the next few days you will see me at your door, calling on my neighbours to sign a petition which I intend to present at the next council meeting. I am asking for a weight restriction to be put in place on Seedley Park Road and Lower Seedley Road and I’ll be looking for highways to try and help prevent incidents such as the one last night from costing lives.