Third serious RTC on the 12 route this month.

I noted on a recent post that a serious RTC between Windy Corner and Brixham or between Penn Inn and Scott's Bridge would have a widespread impact on the running of the 12/12A service. On Jan 7 and on Jan 24 there were RTCs between Penn Inn and Scott's Bridge at the Northern end of the 12 route. This evening at 17:25 a collision occurred on Strawberry Bends at Churston which is about a mile out of Brixham on the Southern end. When the driver of a 12 that had left Brixham at 17:15 reported the RTC I was at Penn Inn, about an hours drive away. Shortly after the initial report came the information that the road would be closed for 3 to 4 hours. This was soon updated to 6 hours.

These days all serious RTCs are investigated very carefully to see who or what is to blame.

I continued to Windy Corner with about 10 passengers who wanted to go into Brixham. By this time Torquay control had arranged for a shuttle bus to pick up any passengers for Brixham and take them on by the back roads. Being a smaller bus meant it could get through where my double decker couldn’t. The Shuttle bus had to come from Torquay which took a little time so I waited at Windy Corner with them.

Several people meanwhile arrived wanting to get to Paignton. They had walked up from the top of New Road where the bus out of Brixham was stuck with the road being closed. Two cars had collided and the driver of one of them, a young man, was reported dead. The driver of the other car, a middle age lady had walked from her car to the ambulance when it arrived.

Later, when it was time for me to finish, I got to the depot and noted that there was no relief driver waiting for me. I reported this to Torquay Control. The controller asked me the duty number of the driver who should have been relieving me. As soon as he said that I guessed what had happened. I told the control it was duty 3612 and asked was he stuck in Brixham. The driver himself came on the radio and confirmed that he was indeed in Brixham. The spare driver was out shuttling passengers between Windy Corner and Brixham and I had about 15 passengers so I continued in service to Paignton. There all my passengers got off and there was no one waiting so I went back out of service to the depot finishing almost an hour late. A long day.

Wednesday morning; From BBC Devon:


Driver, 40, killed in collision

A man has been killed in a car crash in south Devon.
The 40-year-old was one of two drivers involved in a collision at Strawberry Bends on the Dartmouth Road in Churston Ferrers at about 1730 GMT on Tuesday.
Fire crews freed an elderly woman from the other car and she was taken to Torbay District Hospital.
The road was closed for a number of hours and diversions were put in place whilst police investigators carried out an examination.