A petition has been started by residents in Hildenborough to make their road safer after a pregnant woman lost her baby and almost lost her own life in a car accident.

Nicole Chahal, 32, was driving on the road when her car overturned and hit a tree.

She was 34 weeks pregnant and, after being rushed for a Caesarean section, tragically her child was stillborn.

She spent a total of 11 weeks in hospital recovering, and she believes that icy conditions and a wide pothole contributed to her accident in February.

Nicole said: "I still don't remember much of that morning, and nothing after the accident until two or three weeks after.

"The last thing I remember clearly was driving to get my car washed.

"I've been told that a man found me, called an ambulance and screamed out because he didn't know what house number to tell 999.

"He needed it as rather than having numbers, our houses have names.

"Never in a million years did I imagine that I would lose my child because of a pothole."

Amandeep Khasriya, an Associate Solicitor at Moore Blatch, who is helping Nicole with a compensation claim said: "We want to see accidents like this being prevented in the future and one of the ways to do this is by introducing a Quiet Road status to Nizels Lane.

"Never in a million years did I imagine that I would lose my child because of a pothole" - Nicole Chahal

“The local community has come together and submitted a petition to Kent County Council. Currently, 46 out of 58 residents have signed the petition.

"The petition aims to introduce a reduced speed limit of 20mph to Nizels Lane and other traffic calming measures such as preventing HGV’s from driving down the lane.

“Kent County Council is positively engaging with us and this is an ongoing investigation.

"We at Moore Blatch are working closely with Nicole to ensure that she gets the rehabilitation she needs in order to recover from her injuries which is really positive.”

A Kent County Council spokesman said: “We sympathise with residents regarding the incident earlier this year.

"As a local authority we have to make tough decisions on where to make changes to roads across Kent.

“Subsequent investigations on Nizels Lane found no defects on the road and there have been no previous incidents prior to February 8.

“It is important to note that we have to be able to directly mitigate against crashes through engineering.

“KCC has to prioritise its remedial works where specific mitigating schemes have been identified to solve a particular road safety matter.”