Wiltshire: Family fear someone will die after crashing into garden

A family who has had at least eight cars crash through their property say they worry one day, they’ll wake up to a body in their garden.

Stuart and Sarah Robinson have had several vehicles career through their hedge, burst into flames, and have to be removed by crane.

The family has lived on the A429 in Malmesbury, Wiltshire for more than twelve years during which time cars have constantly crashed on the bend outside their home.

But despite several vehicles crashing into their garden – they don’t plan to move, instead, they want the council to make the road safer.

Sarah, 46, says she wants to protect her family from incoming vehicles, but she can’t bring herself to install a crash barrier or stone wall in case the impact kills someone.

Every time the family’s laurel hedge and fence are destroyed in a crash they replace it – which helps slow vehicles on impact but is unlikely to result in death.

‘You’re either going to kill a hedge or kill a person,’ Sarah said.

‘If we put in a wall or a bollard, they’re going to die and that’s on us.

‘So we can’t take more preventative measures ourselves.’

The A429 stretch is a 30mph zone, but the couple says that doesn’t stop some drivers from speeding through the village.

In March, two separate collisions sent cars flying into their garden, leaving the wrecked motors next to their children’s play equipment.

Fortunately, both incidents happened at night when the children Niah, 12, and Bonnie, nine, were tucked up in bed.

But the Robinsons worry they may not always be so lucky and live in fear that one day a vehicle will plough through their boundary while their children play outside.

In 2019, two crashes happened in the same week – with just five days between them.

In one of the incidents, a driver narrowly avoided being speared in the face by a fence post that penetrated his windscreen.

Three years earlier, the Robinson’s hedge was damaged by fire after a car went up in flames following a head-on collision outside their home.

In 2011 and 2014, cars ploughed through their fence and came to rest in the garden.

While in 2012, two years after they moved in, a woman smashed her car into the garden narrowly missing children’s play equipment. The vehicle had to be removed using a crane.

Sarah is worried that one night, they’ll be met with an even more distressing scene.

‘One day we’ll turn up to that car in the middle of the night and they’ll be someone who hasn’t survived the crash and we’ll have to deal with that [trauma],’ she said.

‘I was gardening on Sunday and when a lorry came through, I felt unsafe there.

‘There’s a big gap in the hedge now and I could see it coming towards me, and I just thought what if he doesn’t stop?’

Stuart, 46, said he wants the local council to do more to prevent bad driving – including flashing speed signs.

He said quieter roads during lockdown had given the family a false sense of comfort but he shared Sarah’s concerns over what could happen.

‘I said to the police, I work in finance, I’m not trained to hold someone’s hand as they bleed out in my garden,’ he said.

‘I’m fortunate, despite all these accidents, to never have had that experience.

‘But one day we might, and it might not be us, it might be the kids that come across it. That’ll be horrific for them.

‘My message to the council is: “Don’t wait until someone has died. Preempt it, do something now to try and avoid it”.

‘I don’t want to be speaking about it in three years’ time saying we’ve been campaigning for safety measures for years but nobody did anything about it and as a result, someone’s died.’

Dr Mark McClelland, Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for highways, said: ‘The local highways team is visiting this location to investigate further and review sign and road marking conditions to understand if they meet our intervention criteria.’

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