A petition has been started calling for action after a crash on the A814 between Helensburgh and Cardross last weekend.
A car carrying five people overturned after swerving to avoid a collision near the junction with Ardardan Farm.
It was the second time that Shannen Sloan has been a passenger in a car involved in an accident at that junction and now she has launched an online petition calling for traffic lights to be installed.
There were two adults and three children in the car – Shannen says that only her partner’s quick response avoided the accident being fatal.
“We swerved, hit the back of the other car, took down a road sign and rolled our car into a tree,” she said.
“Our three children – my daughter, five, and my partner’s children aged six and four – were in the back, terrified, two of them dangling by nothing but their seatbelts and one by the end of it lying in a pool of broken glass.
“Thank God, none of them were hurt. In fact, by some miracle (and the bravery of passers-by and our emergency services) we all got out of the car with no serious injuries.
“I have whiplash and my five year-old has damage to her cartilage around her ribs from being suspended by her seatbelt. If we hadn’t hit the tree, we’d have rolled down a hill and all five of us would be dead. But we are aware that we were so, so lucky.”
The petition states that there are many accidents at the junction and cars travelling from Helensburgh cannot be seen from the junction until the last second.
Ardardan recently submitted a planning application for expansion, including a ghost island at the entrance as part of its expansion but he petition states that this is not enough.
“I am proposing that the site have traffic lights installed, with sensors so that they don’t need to be in use if there is nobody waiting to leave the Ardardan site,” said Shannen.
“This will force people to wait at that junction until it is safe to leave. Due to the blind bend on one side, this may include relocating the junction slightly further down the straight stretch of road. This would absolutely be possible with the layout of the entrance, and would be worth it to save lives.
“The outcome could have been so much worse for us. And if it had been, it wouldn’t just have affected the five of us in that car.
“My partner’s children have a loving mother, my daughter a loving father, we all have huge families whose lives could have been ruined that day. Please help me make sure that never ever happens to someone else.”
The petition is available here.
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