DRIVERS hurtling round blind corners and chancing risky overtakes are the worst problems on the deathtrap Grane Road, according to Traffic police.

Officers have helped draw up a map of the most dangerous spots on the notorious road as part of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's Stop The Carnage campaign, which is aimed at improving safety measures on the road and encouraging drivers to take fewer risks.

And road policing officer Sgt Stuart Isherwood has insisted there were only two places he would even consider overtaking on the Haslingden to Blackburn road, where three people have been killed in 18 months.

But he said drivers often risk squeezing past slower-moving traffic yards from blind corners and hills.

He said: "Any driver can hurtle round bends, but they don't know what they are hurtling towards. There could be anything going on round the corner."

Traffic travelling from Haslingden may be able to overtake on a straight stretch after the Helmshore turn-off, and traffic travelling from Blackburn can cautiously pass before the Pack Horse pub, but the rest of the road is a driver's minefield of tight corners, hidden turn-offs, wandering animals and other hazards, he added.

Sgt Isherwood said: "Drivers come off the A56 and may have driven 200 miles at motorway speeds, they are still in motorway mode. Because it is a derestricted road, they think it must be safe to drive at 60mph all the way, but you can't keep up that speed without taking risks." He would like to see reduced speed limits for blind bends, rumble strips across the carriageway warning of problems ahead and double white lines to ban overtaking for most of the route.

He said: "When there's a break in the solid white lines, people think it's safe to overtake when it's not.

"Overtakes have to be planned, not instinctive, and it takes time to think that far ahead. There are very few places where it's possible."

Low clouds and icy weather also make winter driving dangerous on the tops of what is one of the highest roads in Lancashire.

Sgt Isherwood said: "Even the force helicopter has trouble crossing the Grane Road because the visibility is so often bad.

"We would be willing to support any road safety scheme people can come up with. Anything has got to be better than what we have now."

Crash victim's widow backs drive to stop road deaths

THE widow of a motorcyclist killed a year ago in a Grane Road horror crash today backed the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's Stop The Carnage Campaign and vowed: "I do not want my husband to have died in vain."

Rachel Kelly's husband Stephen was travelling from Blackburn to his home in Parkinson Street, Haslingden, when he lost control of his machine and fell into the path of an oncoming car on August 18.

Stephen, 34, died instantly of head injuries and multiple injuries leaving pregnant Rachel, son Anthony now aged 10 and daughter Josephine, 4. Rachel gave birth just two months after the crash and named the daughter he never saw Stevie in his honour.

Rachel has only ever travelled along the Grane Road once since the day her husband was killed - to see the place where he died.

And now she has pledged to do everything in her power to save other families from similar tragedies.

She said: "I back the Evening Telegraph's campaign 100 per cent. My husband isn't the only person to die on that road, there were others before him and others since.

"How many lives will be lost before something is done on that road?

"I never travel over there now, but I will do anything I can if I think it will make that road safer for others."

A permanent tribute to Stephen has been erected at the scene of the accident, close to the Rossendale boundary sign on Grane Road, and is a sobering reminder to drivers of the danger of the hilltop road.

Rachel said: "In the week my husband died there were several other people in accidents on that road, not just him. I don't know what I can do to make a difference, but if I can do anything at all to help I will."

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