A mother has led calls for a slower speed limit on Queens Drive after seeing near-death crashes outside her house.

Rebecca Clements has been first on the scene of two recent collisions having lived on the 40mph road for 22 years.

She is leading calls for a slower speed before one of the accidents involves a fatality.

She recalled hearing “a massive bang and the screeching of brakes and the sound of screams” as a car smashed into a lamppost and flipped.

READ MORE: Headteachers call for Queens Drive to be made safer before a child is killed

Rebecca said: “There was the car literally upside down. It was really scary because I thought I was going to find really bad injuries or a fatality.

“But you can’t not check the car, so we were first on the scene. They were all in the car upside-down, absolutely hysterical, saying they had to get out while we asked them to please, please not move.

“We told them not to move and we had called the emergency services. But they all managed to clamber out and did a runner.”

The car landed on its roof on the grass verge rather than the tarmac, potentially saving the occupants’ lives.

The car at the scene following the crash on Queen's Drive (Image: Public submission)

“It was traumatic because my son is in the front bedroom and it has woken him up. Me and my husband were trying to go in and make sure he was alright and then go back out. It was horrible”, she said.

She says that due to the straightness of the road it is popular with joy riders, having seen “crazy” motorcycles doing wheelies and cars racing on the wrong side of the road.

In another incident in January, an 11-year-old narrowly missed being hit by flying debris from a crashed car.

Brandon-Lee Russell was on his way to school on a Wednesday morning when a Nissan X-Trail smashed the barriers at the pedestrian crossing next to the Co-Op on Queens Drive.

READ MORE: Boy, 11, has lucky escape after crash debris flies past his head on way to school

“When I heard it was a crash I ran the exact route he goes to school to check if he was okay,” said mother Leigh, after her son called her to tell her what had happened.Leigh Russell and her son Brandon-Lee the morning after the crash (Image: Leigh Russell)

“My heart dropped, it fell into my stomach and I felt both sick and dizzy as I just wanted to make sure my kid was alright.

“I could have been dealing with a different situation if Brandon was standing just a bit closer.

“It shouldn’t take a fatality for change to happen.”

Rebecca Clements says a 30mph speed limit on Queens Drive “promised months ago” never happened. Nor did requests to change the lights and crossing to make it a designated school crossing.

READ MORE: ‘Drink driver’ arrested after crash shuts major Swindon road

She has been confused by mixed messages from Wiltshire Police as to whether the road qualifies for a resident’s Community Speed Watch group to monitor speed.

A police officer said: “We regularly carry out enforcement which has shown many vehicles exceeding the 40mph speed limit.

“The reason we must insist on a traffic survey is for the protection of Community Speedwatch Volunteers. They can only operate within certain speed tolerances.

“If the speed is too high then it must be police enforcement and not CSW for their safety.”

The damaged traffic lights on Wednesday afternoon (Image: Public submission)

Wiltshire Police has two-speed enforcement sites on the road, set up following local concerns.

However, a council officer said: “As it stands, within the 40mph section, the road does not qualify for Community Speed watch or Police speed enforcement activity.”

This was based on a speed survey which showed few speeding cars. Rebecca thinks the survey was placed on a slow part of the road meaning it provided skewed results.

Councillor Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport, said: “The site chosen for the traffic survey provided results representative of traffic speeds on this busy section of Queens Drive.

“As a council we have already taken steps to reduce speed along Queens Drive after councillors supported a proposal to reduce the speed limit from 40mph to 30mph between Whitbourne Avenue and the roundabout with Drakes Way.

“A consultation on the proposals is likely to be carried out at some point over the next few months.”

Wiltshire Police did not respond to comment.

“I understand these things take time but can they not hurry up before someone ends up dead”, said Rebecca.

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