Narrow Escape...

Both the Malton & Pickering Mercury and the Gazette & Herald feature cover stories with Sally Roger, head of the Rillington Bypass Group (RBG), concerning her and her children’s narrow escape from severe injury on the day of the serious car crash in August:

Mrs Roger and her two children “were walking to the garage to collect their car when a truck jack-knifed and collided with a car… at the spot where the Rogers would normally be walking on that route. It was only the fact that the children had been to an activity session on the same side of the road as the garage that they weren’t on the crossing when the accident happened”.

The Gazette & Herald article quotes RBG founder Beatrice Robinson on the statistics she has found out about the traffic in the village: “She said that in 1999, official figures showed that 13,500 vehicles a day went through Rillington with as many as 20,000 in the summer months… the latest figures, produced in 2007, show there are 15,300 a day.”

In addition to this, Ryedale’s Sherburn Ward councillor John Raper is quoted saying “Rillington is the only conurbation on a major road leading to a top seaside resort nationally that has not been bypassed”.

Second Crash on A64

On Wednesday 9th September, a hearse collided head-on with a lorry at Swanbeck Bridge, near West Knapton – just on the outskirts of Rillington village. As reported in The Press, the driver of the hearse and his passenger “had to freed from the wreckage by fire fighters [who had to cut off the roof of their vehicle] before being taken to hospital with serious hip and leg injuries.” The lorry was “completely written off”.

The accident was reported in the September 16th Edition of the Malton & Pickering Mercury, describing the incident and connecting it with the accident in Rillington only weeks earlier: long-time bypass campaigner Colin Wicks was quoted, saying “sadly this reinforces my view that it is badly needed. It is awful for those involved but something must be done”.