New safety measures have been introduced at a junction dubbed “the most difficult in Rutherglen.”
A spate of accidents has previously taken place at the mini-roundabout at Dukes Road, Hawthorn Walk and Calderwood Road, leading many locals to campaign for traffic lights to be installed there instead.
In 2019 a woman had to be cut from her car by the Fire and Rescue Service in one of the incidents, having sustained serious tissue damage when her car collided with another at the junction.
Days later there was another collision between two cars at the same spot, prompting campaigners to call for action before anything more serious occurred there.
Now new traffic lights have been placed there in a bid to curb accidents.
Dukes Road resident Eugenie Aroutcheff was particularly concerned about the safety of children.
She said: “The shops at Calderwood Road are a meeting point for young people from Cathkin, Trinity and Stonelaw high schools, particularly at lunchtime.
“There is also Eastfield Lifestyles down the road. This is a very busy location and getting across the various roads used to be a big challenge for children.”
Carolyn Starbuck from Cornwall Avenue added: “It was really very risky. You just came round the corner and the vehicles were on you. People coming to the shops seemed to drive too fast, especially since Covid.
“To be honest, I think it needs a 20 mph restriction too.”
Rutherglen South Liberal Democrat councillor Robert Brown worked with the residents to campaign for the traffic lights, and has long called for action to be taken there.
He said: “To my mind, this was the most difficult junction in Rutherglen – made worse by a blind corner as you came down from Hawthorn Walk. It had become a major throughway for traffic coming down from East Kilbride to join the M74.
“Some cars seemed to think they could just charge though the mini roundabout with precious little regard for pedestrians or other traffic.
“The spate of injury accidents in 2019 pushed the junction up the roads department’s priority list and they agreed to provide traffic lights instead of the difficult mini roundabout.”
Councillor Brown added that it should provide a major safety improvement for locals.
“Parents now have more confidence in letting older children cross the road going to school or to the shops. It is also a boon for older people who felt they were taking their lives in their hands in crossing to the shops or simply going for a walk.”
The new traffic lights followed a £1.5million investment in road safety by South Lanarkshire Council for this year.
