A young woman from Litlington whose car was hit by another travelling the wrong way on the A505 near Ashwell last week has said she feels lucky to be alive after the ordeal.
Robyn Jones was driving on the A505 from Baldock to Royston with two friends in the passenger seats when the car came towards her on the eastbound stretch between the Slip End and Odsey turnings, which both lead to Ashwell, at about 11.45pm.
The 25-year-old told the Crow: “I saw the car coming towards me – I couldn’t believe it. There was a massive bang as the car hit the side of my car and carried on.
Robyn said that area of the road was where her friend Ollie Pritchard, from Royston, sadly died in 2012.
“It brought all that back as it was the exact same place where Ollie died – I was so scared and shaken. I panicked. And the car looked like it was going more than 70mph.”
Robyn dropped her friends off in Royston before heading home.
“I waited until the next day to tell my parents as they were sleeping,” she said. “I thought maybe just my wing mirror was hit, but it had scraped all along the side of my car, the indicator had come off. It was that close.”
Robyn, who works as a dispatcher at Royston’s Thermal Engineering in Orchard Road and uses the road practically every day, has said that although her silver Vauxhall Corsa doesn’t look very good now, she’s thankful it wasn’t worse.
She said: “I’m just thankful that I’m still alive. I have never been that close to death before.
“I’ve heard there have three incidents like this in just over a week. I don’t know how people are doing it – I would wonder why the road signs are all facing the wrong way and the central reservation is in the wrong place, it’s a dual carriageway.”
Fortunately Robyn and her friends were uninjured, and she said that one of her friends in the car had a one-year-old and a newborn baby at home.
She added: “People need to pay more attention. We were lucky this time but it could have been so different.”
Royston motorist Ashley Chappell was also on the road – following his work colleague Joe Leggett who was on a motorcycle – and caught the car travelling the wrong way on his dash cam.
“I was shocked expecially as it was on a hill with a bend on it,” he said.
“I drive on the A505 seven days a week to commute to work in Stevenage, and this is not the first time I have seen this happen on this road.
“My colleague rides a motorbike so it just shows that again, a serious or even fatal incident could have happened especially to motorcyclists. I stopped to make sure he was OK.”
“If it had been 20 seconds before It would have been a horrendous crash.”
Sgt Karl McDermott, of the Beds, Cambs and Herts Road Policing Unit, said: “This was a very dangerous act and it is lucky no one was seriously injured or worse.
“We are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed the alleged collision, saw a dark-coloured car driving the wrong way up the carriageway or a dark-coloured vehicle driving erratically around 11.45pm.”
Officers are also keen to speak to those with dashcam footage of the incident.
Anyone with any information that could assist police should call non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 106 of March 28.
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