A WOMAN caught up in a terrifying car crash on the Evesham bypass says the road needs a safety overhaul.

Tracey Davies’ van was left “with nowhere to go” after the car in front clipped a parked truck and lost control as she drove to work on the A46 bypass at Evesham at 6pm on Wednesday, January 25. The smash could have been worse if she had been driving any closer, and she was saved from critical injury by her seatbelt and airbag.

But Mrs Davies said the bypass itself is at least partly to blame for what happened, saying road markings are unclear for drivers. “It’s not for me to say who was to blame but what I saw was the car in front of me move right as if to overtake,”

she said.

“The car then moved back to the left because of the line of chevron markings, painted in the centre of the road. Then he hit the back of the truck, and I was left with nowhere to go. Either I went into the back of the lorry, or the car – and I went into the car.”

Mrs Davies, who runs mobile hairdressing business Phoenix Hair & Beauty, makes regular trips along the road and said markings should be made clearer to discourage unsafe overtaking.

In the past she says she has seen cars overtake driving across the chevronmarkings, as they approach the summit of the De Montfort bridge.

In this case, she says the car in front had followed the line of the chevrons which are painted on the approach to the Twyford island, to traffic heading from the Badsey roundabout, forcing it to move from the centre of the road into the line of the parked truck.

“The problem is the large width the road, which just encourages over-taking, and it is so risky I just do not know why they have left it like that,” said the 40-year-old, of Fleece Road in Broadway.

The mother-of-two scrambled from her wrecked Renault van, and – badly dazed – only realised she was bleeding from a deep head gash when she felt the blood on her face. “I keep peroxide inside to dye hair, but it’s flammable so I got out quick,” she said.

“A lovely lady in the car behind stopped and put a blanket around me, and another woman helped me.” She was taken to hospital and is back home but suffering from whiplash.

Worcestershire County Council said there had been 10 bad accidents on the road in the past two years. The Highways Agency, which has responsibility for the road, could not provide a comment at the time of going to press.