Parents of a schoolgirl left seriously injured in hospital after being hit by a car are demanding safety measures on a "notoriously dangerous" stretch of road.

Folkestone School for Girls pupil Maya McFadden was returning home when she was struck by a vehicle as she crossed Canterbury Road in Densole after getting off the bus at Nursery Lane.

The 11-year-old was hit on her left side by a car travelling south on the A260, leaving her in hospital in Ashford for five days with a collapsed lung, broken ribs, cuts and bruises, and a badly-sprained left leg in a cast.

Mum Caroline, 52, described the moment on May 17 when she realised her daughter had been involved in an accident she had dreaded since moving to their home of the busy Canterbury Road last summer.

"I was on my way home from work," she said. "I was driving home up Spitfire Way and an ambulance went past.

"As I was on my way to Densole the traffic started building up and an ambulance car went past, and I instinctively knew it was my daughter.

"So I tried to call her on her mobile, which kept picking up, but just nothing there. So I knew something had happened to her and then the policewoman called me back on Maya's phone and said that she'd had an accident, that she'd been hit by a car.

"I got to the scene and she was being cared for by the ambulance crew and I was lucky enough to get in the ambulance with her and go off to the William Harvey.

"Because this is such a notoriously dangerous road, it's been my one fear since we moved here last year, and obviously that fear's now become a reality.

"We want a crossing, some lights, speed reduction, speed cameras, anything to make this road safe for children and residents."

With Maya now home from hospital and making a good recovery, her parents have started a petition calling for the highways authorities to introduce new safety measures.

So far more than 500 people have added their signatures to the online petition.

A strikingly similar accident occurred on the same stretch of road in 2016 when an 11-year-old Folkestone Academy pupil was also hit by a car when crossing Canterbury Road.

Emma Gardiner was hit by the vehicle when she was half way across the road, resulting in her "being thrown a considerable distance" according to her mother.

A Kent County Council spokesman said: "As with all serious crashes, a full report from Kent Police will be completed to ascertain all causation factors.

"This report will be shared with Kent County Council and we will subsequently undertake any highway engineering work deemed necessary to help prevent a similar type of incident from occurring again."