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News

Campaigners want changes made to A249 between Stockbury and Detling.

By: Hayley Robinson

Published: 07:00, 06 December 2013

A woman whose brother died in an accident on the A249 is backing calls for a review of safety on the road after a motorcyclist was killed.

Nicholas Lockwood’s green Kawasaki was in collision with a bronze-coloured Ford Fiesta on the Maidstone-bound carriageway.

Simon Hodges was killed in April 1994 on the A249

The 43-year-old had been travelling coastbound but did a U-turn at the Hucking turn-off before accelerating towards Detling, where it is thought he collided with the rear of the car.

The Wateringbury resident was taken to a hospital in London, where he died last week.

The Fiesta’s woman driver was uninjured. The road was closed for about five hours to allow collision investigators to conduct an examination of the scene.

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The accident prompted Iwade resident Rachel Rook, whose father David was killed on the road in 2007, to renew her calls for changes to its layout. Those views are echoed by Heidi Hodges whose brother Simon died in April 1994.

The 19-year-old, who was travelling from Sittingbourne, had just got off a bus after the Stockbury roundabout on the Maidstone-bound carriageway when was hit by a car as he crossed the road.

Rachel Rook, who lost her father in an accident on the A249

The 41-year-old, who lived in Stockbury at the time but now lives in Norfolk, said: “Unless you drive you have to cross the road to get the bus.

“I had twin three-year-old boys at the time and I would cross that road with a double buggy to get the bus. I was always terrified.

“I moved shortly after he died back to Maidstone which is where we’re from originally. I couldn’t bear it. I would pass the spot where he was killed everyday.

“It’s lethal for anyone and there’s been so many deaths since Simon. You get to the point where you close your eyes and try not to think about it.

“When I saw on Facebook there had been an accident it was like ‘another one?’

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“It’s heartbreaking. There are always going to be accidents no matter how safe the road is but something has to be done.”

Mrs Rook had appealed to Kent Highways to close the “U-turn lanes” on the road, but says she was told a roundabout would then have to be constructed, costing “millions of pounds”.

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