Living next to accident blackspot 'really shook me up'

Paul Pinkstone has lived next to an accident blackspot for three decades.

This year alone, the B656 crossroads in Little Almshoe in Hertfordshire has seen five major incidents with a total of eight vehicles written off.

As a qualified first aider, he's often first to get to the scene, so he keeps a first aid bag and fluorescent jacket next to his front door.

"The last accident, when the driver of one of the vehicles was actually trapped in her car and they had to cut her out... it really shook me up," he said.

Pinkstone said his fence had been damaged four times in 2026. Of the last incident he said: "At the time you accept it and get on with it, but it really affected me when I got home."

Pinkstone was managing director of the Stevenage Knitting Company which made uniforms for schools all over the country. He ran it with his brother-in-law and sister, after his father passed away in 1973, until it closed in 2010.

He is a trained first aider after 25 years working as a Cub Scout leader in the 4th Hitchin group in St Ippolyts. When an incident happens on the crossroads, he often gets to it before the emergency services arrive, even though he doesn't always know what he might find.

As he heads out he said he asks himself: "Is it a serious accident? How many vehicles are going to be involved? And who's seriously injured?"

Pinkstone has been campaigning for many years to get Hertfordshire County Council to reduce the speed limit on the road.

"Each time they say they're looking into the problem, but say it may take two years to resolve."

In the meantime he said he had "put up a new fence which has increased visibility... [but] the main problem is the road markings are eroded away".

A council spokesperson said: "Improving road safety remains a key priority and our Speed Management Strategy has been updated to reflect a shift from reacting to existing traffic speeds towards proactively setting speeds based on what is safe and appropriate for the area."

However, Pinkstone said: "We don't need another survey, everybody knows what the problem is, everybody knows how to solve it, apart from experts who are paid by our Council Tax, who don't seem to want to do anything."

Despite everything, Paul said he didn't want to move.

"We love it here and we've lived in our house for 30 years, so I want to stay," he said.

"We're very involved with the local community, but we have our Cub Scouts that come and use our field, which is right next to the road which could be a danger for them."

The B656 links Hitchin and Welwyn, and Little Almshoe is about three miles away south of Hitchin.

The road has a 60mph speed limit as it heads north-south through the village. The two roads on either side have to give way and people living there said there was a lack of visibility for drivers.

Villagers said people travelling east towards the crossroads from Preston use Little Almshoe Road as a cut-through.

It slopes down as drivers approach the junction at the crossroads and residents say drivers often brake suddenly when they realise the B656 is in front of them.

For retired engineer David and wife Lynne, who works at the University of Hertfordshire, the crossroads has had a massive impact, after a January collision left her scared to drive through it.

She was heading to work at 07:15 GMT on a dark and rainy winter's morning when David said her vehicle had collided with another car travelling from Preston that "literally appeared in front of her in a millisecond".

"She hit it fully side-on on the passenger side, which spun our car 360 degrees round and up a bank."

David said she wasn't injured in the collision, aside from strap marks from the seatbelt and a bruise on her nose, but the car was written off.

He said if the other car had "hit my wife straight on the driver's door it could have been something quite serious".

As a result he said she had initially been "too upset to drive along that route" and he had had to drive her to work for the first month afterwards.

They have now bought a similar model of car as David said it was "the only car she felt safe in, and had saved her life".

Six months later she has started driving through the junction again, but David said she does so "cautiously as she watches anybody on that crossroads, in case anybody should pop out or be parked up and whether or not they see her coming along".

He added she would "slow right down to a very slow speed, just in case and on most other junctions, she's still affected as well".

The Labour MP Alistair Strathern for Hitchin has pushed for "stop" signs replacing "give way" signs on the approaches to the junction from the east and west.

The county council's updated road safety strategy is open for public consultation until 27 July.

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