WORRIED Sandbach councillors have called for action to stop deaths at "one of the most lethal motorway junctions in the United Kingdom."

The Town Council agreed to warn the Highways Agency that junction 17 of the M6 had become a potential death trap for motorists amid rush-hour chaos.

Speaking at a meeting last Thursday, Councillor Bernard Edwards explained how impatient drivers were making dangerous U-turns to save time as they raced to work.

He said motorists wanting to exit the southbound carriageway and head for Sandbach were actually cutting out traffic by turning left towards Congleton and using a lay-by on a dangerous bend to swing the car around.

"It would be quite simple to have a traffic island which would stop people from making the turn across," he said.

"It's a very dangerous maneouvre and they cause people to break sharply. At that particular part of Congleton Road there is potential for a very serious accident."

County Councillor David Lloyd Griffiths agreed but also called for a complete overhaul of the junction with the inclusion of traffic lights.

"It's a shambles. I have witnessed accidents there myself. It's becoming an enourmous source of irritation to other drivers who use the junction normally," he said.

"We should call for the imposition of peak hour traffic lights because we get too much traffic stacking back onto the motorway from 7-9am, leading to all sorts of maneouvres which are likely to cause accidents."

Councillor Roy Sutton said he had nearly been caught up in an accident with a dangerous driver near the lay-by.

"The whole of junction 17 is one of the most lethal junctions in the United Kingdom and wants a major review before we have a massive fatality," he said.

"There's going to be a major collision and somebody is going to die, so it needs sorting out very very quickly."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.