On Monday afternoon a 22-year old woman was involved in an accident with a Stagecoach bus on High Street, bringing the City Centre to a standstill.
The accident occurred at 12.55pm involving a pedestrian and a bus operating on Route 1 between Blackbird Leys and the City Centre. The woman became trapped under the bus and was eventually freed by fire crews. She was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital with pelvic injuries and her condition is thought to be stable and non-life threatening.
The bus company was not able to comment as the situation was being investigated by the police. Adam Rideout, a spokesperson for Stagecoach, did confirm that the company was conducting an internal investigation of the incident.
The route is popular with students. The bus services which run along the Cowley Road into the centre of Oxford are run by Stagecoach and the Oxford Bus Company.
Cowley Road has the highest reported accident rate of any street in Oxfordshire and a crash occurs statistically once every two weeks. More cyclists use the road than any other in the South East of England – more than 3,000 between 7am and 7pm every day.
Oxfordshire County Council have responded by implementing road safety improvements to the Cowley Road which begun on 4 April 2005 and are expected to continue until November.
The improvements, include a 20mph speed limit accompanied by signs which flash if drivers exceed this speed, three paved areas, sixteen road crossings, 40 new trees, one hundred new cycle parking spaces, 13 new benches and designated parking and loading bays. The changes are expected to cost in excess of £2m.
The scheme is the result of a large scale consultative exercise with the community and road users. The exercise was carried out by East Oxford Action and more than 2,000 people contributed ideas. The final scheme was displayed last June and the County Council claims that “the overwhelming majority of respondents supported it.” Celia Jones, from the Environment and Economy and Transport Planning Department said that the following the works, Cowley Road would be “smoother, safer and more attractive for many years.”
Sid Phelps, a Green Party Oxford Town Councillor, described the works as a “model road safety experiment” and attributed the impetus for the project and the drive for funding it to his fellow Green Councillor Craig Simmons.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005
Accident halts High Street
