Thursday 24 January 2008

An Other RTC

There are two places on our route where an RTC is bound to cause Chaos. One is between Brixham and Windy Corner and the other is between Scott's Bridge and Penn Inn, Kingskerswell. There is no other way round these two stretches of road. So you don't want to hear the words RTC and Kingskerswell mentioned in the same breath.

Anyway I left Brixham at 15:21 this afternoon (Thursday) as a 12A heading for the Depot for my lunch break. At 15:35 a driver reported over the radio that there had been an RTC at Jury's Corner which is on the Newton Road in Kingskerswell. That is about 3/4 mile down from the place where an other serious RTC occurred on Jan 7. Today a motorcyclist was involved, which is the 5th or 6th serious accident, sorry RTC, to happen in the 9 years I have been driving up and down this road. The initial reports suggested that it might be a fatal and the police cordoned of Torquay bound side of the road outside the Sloop public house. Tailbacks built up very quickly as the police allowed traffic to pass the scene. Then it was decided that the Air Ambulance was needed, which does suggest that the initial report of a fatal accident may have been incorrect. Traffic was halted while the helicopter landed and took off. After a while the the forensic team arrived and took photos and made measurements and checked out every detail in order to determine the cause of the collision.

I arrived at the depot on time at 16:32 and handed over to my relief driver who took the bus on to Newton. At 17:17 I was due back out on the road heading for Brixham. My bus finally arrived at 18:20, I had been due off Brixham at 18:15. Fortunately there was no one on the bus going any further than Torquay so the controller told me to turn round at Torquay and head for Newton putting me back on time. There was an other bus in Torquay at the same time as me going to Brixham so no one had to wait because I was turned. So off to Newton I went. The forensic team were still doing their work when I got to Jury's Corner and I ended up in Newton 25 minutes late. By the time I got back to Torquay I should have been in Brixham, only 40 minutes down. I ended up finishing 32 minutes down. a very chaotic afternoon. The road finally reopened completely about 21:50.

Footnote:
09:00 Friday.
I have just heard on Radio Devon that an 85 year old motorcyclist died at the scene and the forensic team are still there investigating.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trawling through blogs to kill time and to gain inspiration for my own blog i had become completely disillusioned and was about to give up completely. This blog sounded just as rubbish as the rest but surprisingly inspired me well put together and with a genuine approach and i find amusing and interesting, i continue to to search for yet more inspiration. Thanks Dave the bus driver.

Unknown said...

85 year old motorcyclist on Newton Road?

Lord Hutton said...

Yep. And he died. Poor sod.