MUCH has been written about the parking difficulties at York Hospital. On arriving for an appointment, my daughter and I decided to use the alternative car park on Haxby Road.

This seemed like a reasonable option and the route to the hospital was signed through the park.

However, on reaching Wigginton Road, I found that although the pavement had dropped kerbs, indicating a place to cross the road, there was no form of crossing aid, not even a traffic island.

On our return from the hospital, this proved to be very dangerous indeed.

The traffic was queued on to Wigginton Road and there was a steady flow of traffic in both directions.

We walked to the designated area with dropped kerbs, but there seemed little chance of negotiating the three lanes safely. The only option was to walk between the queuing cars, stand at the edge and hope for a break in the flow of traffic.

Just as a possible gap seemed to be coming up the cars in the queue began to move behind us.

Owing to the impatience of drivers in both directions we became effectively squashed between two moving vehicles.

Driver selfishness aside, the whole situation is one of an accident waiting to happen.

It is possible that the road is too narrow to accommodate a traffic island but surely a pedestrian crossing could be put in place.

Mrs K Drummond,

York Road,

Stillingfleet, York.

Updated: 10:05 Monday, February 16, 2004