New A9 safety measures to reduce accidents

The A9 is known for accidents. Picture: Dan Phillips

A new safety measure aimed at reducing accidents on the main road to the Highlands will be unveiled today.

Transport minister Keith Brown will announce details of the improvements to be made to the A9.

Mr Brown will be joined by Superintendent Iain Murray from Police Scotland and Michael McDonnell from Road Safety Scotland at the event.

Both the police and the road safety organisation are members of the A9 Safety Group, which has been developing ways of improving safety on what is Scotland’s longest trunk road.

The announcement comes in the wake of calls for the Scottish Government to bring forward its plans to convert the whole stretch of the road from Perth to Inverness to dual carriageway.

Shame

Chief Superintendent David O’Connor, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, has previously demanded transport chiefs make the work a “higher priority”.

Earlier this week Professor Donald Macleod, former principal of Free Church College in Edinburgh, said upgrading the ‘’notorious’’ road should be a national priority for the Scottish Government.

He claimed that the number of people killed on the A9 was a “shame to the nation”.

Earlier this month three people, including a woman and her young daughter, were killed in a two-car crash on the A9 near Kingussie in the Highlands.

Abigail Houston, 42, and seven-year-old Mia, from the Trinity area of Edinburgh, died in the crash which also claimed the life of Dr Mohammad Ali Hayajneh from Duisberg in Germany.

Committed

A Scottish Government spokesman insisted that dualling the A9 is “one of the top transport infrastructure projects in the country”.

He said: “The dualling of the A9 has been talked about for at least a generation but we are the first administration committed to making the road dual carriageway, all the way from Perth to Inverness, a reality.”

Most of the A9 is single carriageway, with the Scottish Government planning to convert it to dual carriageway by 2025. The £3 billion project would see 80 miles of the road upgraded.