FOCUS ON A9: 'Lives lost due to political failures'
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A Badenoch A9 safety campaigner speaking at Holyrood’s petitions committee has articulated how many Highlanders feel about the failure to dual the route according to the original timetable – that more lives will be lost and more heartbreak endured as a result.
Laura Hansler, of Kincraig, was originally motivated to start the A9 Dual Action Group after listening to what survivors and their families had to say about the devastating impact of collisions on the road.
She forcefully argued that dualling is the best way to save lives, but was unforgiving of failings – laying at least part of the blame squarely at the doors of the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland.
After the recent death of an 18-year-old from Moray, she said: “One can’t help but think that had the transport minister and Transport Scotland got on with their jobs then, maybe, yet again, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
“A family wouldn’t be burying their son, a community wouldn’t be without its loved one.”
She asked: “Why dualling? Dualling by virtue reduces the proclivity for head on collisions to almost 100 per cent where a fixed central reservation is in place; head on collisions are normally the most horrific accidents involving multiple vehicles, producing the most fatalities.
“In 2022, 12 out of the 13 fatalities were as a direct result of multiple vehicle RTC (road traffic collisions) on single carriageway sections. Only one fatality was on a dualled section and involved no other vehicle. In just three months, nine innocent people lost their lives on the A9 within a distance of 28 miles, all on single carriageway sections. Five of these within metres of each other at Slochd, within a matter of weeks – these included two grandparents and their two-year-old grandson.”
Ms Hansler feels that dualling has been treated as a political football and needs serious government time and effort.
She said: “The Scottish Government outlined ‘ambitious’ plans to dual the A9 in 2009, a £3 billion project. In 2011 this became a pledge of ‘utmost priority’ to complete the dualling in its totality from Perth to Inverness by 2025, such was the exponential rate of deaths by RTC on the A9 then.
“Today we have no clear indications as to when the remaining nine out of the initial 11 sections might be dualled. Only 11 miles out of a promised 80 are dualled to date. Recently, (there) has been the failure to secure a contractor for the Tomatin to Moy section, with only one submitting a bid. This bid was subsequently rejected on the grounds that it failed to deliver value for money.”
