Please can I advise you of a collision investigation that has been carried out on the above road. This investigation forms part of Hertfordshire County Council’s ongoing commitment to reduce the number and severity of injury collisions that occur on our roads. An annual programme of engineering measures is developed to address those known injury collision locations and is promoted to fulfil our duties under the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1988 (section 39) which requires authorities to develop programmes to address its known accident problems.

This statutory obligation placed on the highway authority states that once studies have been carried out on specific collision locations, it must in light of those investigations, take measures as appear to the authority to be appropriate to prevent such collisions reoccurring. This places a fairly strong obligation on the authority to ensure that it promotes projects that it considers will address the specific collision problems.

A collision study looking at a three year date range has been carried out. During this time twenty three injury collisions have been recorded on the A1057 Hatfield Road between the junctions with Clarence Road and Royal Road, of which four have been either serious or fatal in severity (KSI).

The predominant pattern that has been identified is failing to look by the driver or pedestrian and misjudging speed or distance

The proposed remedial measures will include the provision of high friction surfacing at the following locations :-

• The A1057 approaches to the mini roundabout junction with Royal Road and the Morrisons supermarket.
• The approaches to the existing pedestrian crossing facilities located on Hatfield road between the junction with Blandford Road and the Royal Road/Morrisons supermarket mini rbt.
• The renewal of associated road markings.

These measures are intended to provide an improved skidding resistance to the carriageway surface and to highlight areas along the route where additional hazards may occur. These measures are provisional programmed for delivery in September 2011. I have attached a plan that provides an overview of the proposals.

I would be grateful to receive your views on the proposed recommendations by the end of April 2011