Moray MSP, Richard Lochhead, has reinforced calls for improvements on one of the region’s most notorious roads after a “horrible accident” left a young boy with spinal injuries.
The SNP politician spoke out after a head-on crash on the A95 Keith to Rothes route this week.
The collision was so severe that fire crews were forced to use cutting equipment to free a woman and her son from inside their mangled Vauxhall Vectra.
Mr Lochhead has been campaigning for transport bosses to investigate upgrading the road, after a local haulage firm complained its lorries were routinely becoming damaged while trying to edge past each other.
Yesterday, he pledged to investigate what lessons could be learned from the most recent incident on the route.
And he added: “This is a horrible accident on a local road and our thoughts are with those that have been injured.
“Following the investigation by the police to identify the causes, I will certainly be discussing this and other recent accidents in Moray to see if any lessons need to be learned.”
The collision took place on a series of bends near Mulben at 4.30pm on Wednesday.
It also involved a blue Honda Civic, the front of which was mangled by the force of the smash.
Once firefighters had managed to remove the youngster from his family’s car, an air ambulance was sent to take him to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin.
A woman – understood to be his mother – was also taken there for treatment on a neck injury.
Transport Scotland has responded that £25million has been invested since 2007 to ensure the A95 operates “safely and efficiently”.
But the Mcphersons of Aberlour haulage firm has demanded improvement – even as it spends £1,000 every week on repairs to lorries which have been damaged on the A95.
Meanwhile, the Moray Economic Partnership group has commissioned an independent study to examine how work on it could be carried out.
Yesterday, Mr Lochhead’s office confirmed the Scottish Government’s transport minister, Humza Yousaf, is expected to visit the region to survey stretches of the A95 in early 2017.
