MOBILE cafe owner Karen Murray today told of how she watched motorists dicing with death on the Grane Road and admitted: "I see near-misses all the time."

Karen called emergency services after the crash which injured six people next to her caravan, in a layby between the Grey Mare pub and Helmshore, on Monday.

Police said a Ford Escort overtaking a VW Golf hit an oncoming pick-up truck, forcing both cars into an articulated lorry.

Karen said: "That crash was an accident waiting to happen. I see near-misses here all the time when cars are overtaking. Without the heavy goods vehicles, the cars would be overtaking each other even faster."

Karen is in favour of speed restrictions, speed cameras and traffic calming schemes, but believes speed humps and other restrictions must be well lit to prevent more accidents at night.

Haulage industry experts believe banning lorries from the Grane Road could remove the danger of frustrated drivers overtaking slow-moving lorries, but it would allow car drivers to go even faster. And they called for local authorities to carry out research into the causes of accidents and the vehicles using the road before imposing a weight restriction.

Chris Fylan, Lancashire spokesman for the Road Hauliers Association, said: "I am a car driver as well and I know it's frustrating to sit behind a lorry.

"Road rage is a fact of life now and people do get impatient, but lorries may be helping safety by curtailing high speeds.

"The logical consequence of removing an obstruction like a slower-travelling HGV is that the cars will go even faster. If the majority of accidents are caused by excess speeds there may be more accidents."

Mr Fylan said hauliers were becoming more cost-conscious due to high fuel prices and needed to take shorter routes to save cash.

He said: "They are entitled to use the road because they pay road tax. You can't ban all the HGV traffic anyway because some will be needed to service the community, collecting milk and delivering feed to farms."

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