Two dead in roundabout crash

A NOTORIOUS accident blackspot claimed more two lives last weekend.

An unnamed driver and one of his passengers died when the car they were travelling in smashed into a wall at the Crooked Billet Roundabout, Walthamstow.

The fatal accident occurred early on Saturday, October 7, a week after Chingford grandmother Elizabeth Green lost her life trying to cross the busy A406.

On Saturday, the driver of a Vauxhall Astra lost control of his car after it clipped the kerb, causing the vehicle to career across the road.

Fire appliances from Woodford and Edmonton spent nearly an hour cutting the occupants free.

A 25-year-old back-seat passenger was pronounced dead at the scene and the seriously injured driver was taken to Whipps Cross Hospital where he died later that day.

Miraculously, the front seat passenger walked away from the crash with only a few cuts and bruises.

A police spokeswoman told the Guardian: Because of road works people have to use the slip road.

The Vauxhall Astra carrying three passengers was travelling eastbound on the North Circular when it hit the kerb and crashed into a wall.

We have not been able to contact the next of kin.

According to accident statistics from the London Accident Analysis Unit, between 1994 and 1998 there were 106 accidents on the busy roundabout connecting two parts of the North Circular Road.

Over those four years, 118 people were injured, 23 of them seriously.

Waltham Forest Council has been looking into ways of reducing the accident rate since 1997.

A spokesman said: We are going to instal traffic lights. The work will be carried out in 2001/2002.

One of the council officers who attended the crash scene to remove the car said the wreck was absolutely crumpled and wondered if it had been travelling at speed.