'˜Another death '“ will they finally listen?'

26-year-old Matthew Hallam was riding his motorcycle east on Leighton Road, Stanbridge, on the section between Leighton Buzzard and the rugby club, when control was lost and he collided with a fence on Thursday, March 31.

An inquest in Mr Hallam’s death was opened on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Glen Transport Ltd, whose fence Mr Hallam crashed into, said: “The road surface is appalling and when you’re driving on this road, I can guarantee you’ll find five or six cars will be breaking the speed limit.”

The spokesman said there had been several fatalities on the road in the last ten years. Incidents include:

On May 4 last year, two people were cut from their car which crashed into a tree near the golf club.

In 2014 a pensioner died in a collision with another car at the junction with Billington Road.

And a woman lost her leg in an horrific hit and run on November 23 on the bend in the road close to Leighton Rugby Club’s ground.

The spokesman added: “I’d like the speed limit dropped to 40mph, the same way they dropped the speed by the test station.

“The whole road is an accident waiting to happen and I’ve spoken to the council endless times.

“We as a business paid for road signs warning of vehicles turning, to slow down. We paid for that – not the council. We. Already one of them has been flattened due to speed.

“We’d like to see the speed dropped from Stanbridge Road where it joins Leighton Road to 40mph. It’s a very, very dangerous road. I’ve written letters and I’ve got nowhere. They must see the pattern.”

A Central Bedfordshire Council spokesperson said: “Our sympathies are with the motorcyclist and their family.

“It is too early to say what the contributory factors were for this recent accident and we do not want to speculate on what the causes may have been.

“We routinely monitor fatal accident reports received from the police and utilise the accident information recorded on the police database over a rolling three year programme to inform us where to prioritise our spending on safety schemes.

“Each site is fully assessed so that our interventions on the network will be most effective. As a result of this process Central Bedfordshire Council has introduced lower speed limits, installed traffic calming measures and other safety measures at numerous locations in our area.”

Police are keen to speak to anyone who saw a blue Honda CBR1100 Super Blackbird motorcycle in the area at the time or anyone who stopped afterwards to offer help.

Anyone with information is asked to contact PC Robert Hauxwell from the Collision Investigation Unit on 101.