FEAR OF SUDDEN DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 21715, 9 May 1934, Page 12

FEAR OF SUDDEN DEATH

. VILLAGE THAT GETS HO , REST ■DANGER SPOT ON THE ROAD. Fear of sudden death haunts the inhabitants of the" tiny Middlesex village ®f-South'-Minims. As it is on the main London to Birm-ingharn-Manchester road, cars and lorries hurtle through its centre day and night at terrific speeds and accidents are almost daily occurrences. So serious has the position become that a question was raised in the House of Commons last month with a view to having a speed limit imposed within the village boundaries. “ Two of ray parishioners have been killed in the past two mouths,” the Rev. Allen Hay, vicar of St. Giles, said to an interviewer. There are three particularly bad places where accidents frequently occur, and we are hoping that the Ministry of Transport will do something about it soon. “On several occasions people hurt in accidents in the village have been attended to in the vicarage. Seven or ' eight times in the past year the churchyard fence has been smashed down. When there is a smash. the villagers have to do the best they can for the injured, for there is no doctor in the village.” At Bignell’s Corner, where the Birmingham road and the Great North road cross each other, a correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express ’ stood watching the cavalcade for an hour. More than gOO cars and lorries passed in that time, •’ and there was a constant screeching of brakes. “ The only time we get any real rest is on Saturday nights,” one villager says. “ During the week heavy lorries pass through every few minutes all night long. On Saturday nights we get only private cars. There are hardly any pets in the village now. Cats and dogs are always being killed.”