Safety fears over Maybury Road as family mourn tragic death

FEARS of further accidents at the scene of Friday's horror smash in Maybury Road have prompted calls for safety '¨measures.

MSP Alex Cole Hamilton has complained about the lack of speed cameras on the Maybury Road. Picture: Ian Georgeson

Blameless Jonathan Smith was killed after his car burst into flames in the early hours of Friday morning in a crash caused by the speeding driver of a stolen car.

Residents and road users reported reckless driving while Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton has called for speed cameras to deter joyriders.

“First and foremost, this road hasn’t been fit for purpose for some time and is not viable,” Mr Cole-Hamilton said.

He labelled the road a “bottleneck to Barnton at rush hour” while also used as a racetrack for joyriders at night.

And he slammed a points system to decide which roads get cameras for effectively requiring three deaths in three years on a 0.6 mile stretch.

“It’s a macabre formula based on waiting for the worst to happen before acting, which is not good enough,” Mr Cole-Hamilton said. “They should put speed cameras in now to slow traffic and deter boy racers from using that stretch.”

Police are still hunting the driver of a stolen Audi A3 being driven on the wrong side of the road that caused a family’s BMW X5 to swerve and plough into Mr Smith’s car.

Other drivers took to social media to report safety concerns on Maybury Road after Mr Smith became the second fatality in five years.

The tragedy comes five years after 30-year-old Billy Casement was killed on the same stretch of road.

The father-of-two was being driven in friend Darren Luke’s Subaru Impreza at 74mph in the 40mph zone on the wrong side of the road when it hit a car and a van.

Mr Casement, 30, was pronounced dead at the scene and offshore worker Lake was later jailed for three years for reckless driving.

Resident Hazel Young said: “Very bad stretch of road. The speed limit was lowered quite a few years ago after a fatal accident. Sadly an accident has happened again.” And Vivienne Hunter added: “I drive up and down it every day. It’s the ones who speed that cause mayhem in and out of the lanes.”

Edinburgh City Council transport convener, Cllr Lesley Macinnes, said: “This was a very tragic incident and our thoughts are with the victim’s family. Road safety is of paramount importance to the council and the police are carrying out a very detailed and thorough criminal investigation into what happened. Once the full circumstances are established, we will be discussing these with the police.”

Speed cameras are operated by Safety Cameras Scotland (SCS), a partnership between the Scottish Government and Police Scotland.

No one was available for comment at SCS yesterday, but its website states road safety is paramount in deciding the location of cameras.

A statement reads: “The cameras that are deployed through the programme are done so primarily where they have the greatest potential to reduce injury collisions, and where there is evidence of both collisions and speeding.”