Forums Forums Street News Thingwall. car hit by falling tree

By warrens medical centre just before 8am. Tree or large branch come down on a vehicle. Fire engines in attendance to extricate occupant(s).
Road closed at least in one direction

That's bad.

Not surprised though , as all the trees need a good lopping around there. Branches fly off all the time in windy weather.

Council knows how overgrown these trees are, council does nothing.

When private contractors were brought in to maintain such and the grass verges, the public were asked to inform the council if we were ever concerned about anything. Silly that, because they don't listen !


It can hardly be called an act of God and I'm very sorry for the occupants . Hope it's not fatal.

Went to see if posted in traffic news section and saw mark had posted almost identical post but was last year

Council need to have their own team of tree surgeons who are also let out for public use at reasonable rates.

We are probably still behind on public tree maintenance from the rogue company they used a few years ago.

Many private trees are getting far too big because owners can't afford the huge prices tree surgeons are charging. Their disposal charges are silly money as well.

I got caught up in it this morning. Left my house in Heswall at 10 past eight and got into work in central Birkenhead at 10 past nine - EHHHHHHHHH.

We must be talking about a different council. They seem extremely enthusiastic about lopping branches or even cutting whole trees down for no good reason around here.

Personally I'd be happy to run the risk for the sake of the greenery and pleasure they give. A bashed car seems a small price to pay. If we are that concerned, however, perhaps a strong steel structure or roof could be constructed for the cars to park where trees form a threat.

Shouldn't be --- cut the big stuff for all the sold fuel burners and chip the rest and take to free tips. Garden centre along leasowe road has piles of free chippings. allotments always seem to be after free chippings

I saw a large tree branch fall in Liscard outside Barclays bank about 6 weeks ago and it just missed a woman. The branch must have been hit by a wagon and snapped off, but was caught and held by the other branches. The wind blew and down it came. It only missed her by a couple of inches. She was really lucky.

Let's try to keep the risk in proportion.

Chances of being killed by a tree accident in public space in the UK is 1 in 20,000,000. You are twice as likely to be killed in an air accident and if you buy a weekly lottery ticket, you are 75 times more likely to win the jackpot. You are a thousand times more likely to be killed in a car accident, 40 times more likely to be killed in a train accident, ten times more likely to die after falling out of bed, and twice as likely to be killed by a radiation leak from a nuclear power station.

I'm all for keeping folk safe, but let's try to look at the risk rationally, and improve the most dangerous ones first, before worrying about this very unlikely event.

Anything can be proved by quoting statistics, for instance, statistically speaking, if you have a Heart attack, you're far more likely to survive it if you go to a Cafe instead of a Hospital. As statistically far more people die of Heart attacks in Hospitals than they do in Cafe's

Firstly, Habdad is right in what he says about statistics.

Not a bashed car so far as I know, it was a caved in roof on an Audi. No matter what statistics are, one life lost due to a tree or a branch falling on anyone , is one too many.

Ex, do you get out very often ? Your remark about building structures or roof to protect cars from such events happening is quite odd. Have you been to Arrowe Park Hospital recently or maybe Landican Cemetery area. Hardly able to erect structures to protect vehicles on those main roads or any other main road.

When you mention about them cutting trees down to a stump, that is their way of managing trees, instead of lopping. Huge concern nation wide about this policy. A cheaper option for the companies to gain most profit, but the Council should be monitoring and imo disapproving the policy.

I agree about not cutting the trees completely down (especially as this one was in a park) but I do think they need to be managed and checked. I also think it would maybe make financial sense. The amount of services called out can't have been cheap. The police presence was very heavy along with 2 fire engines, search and rescue, ambulance crews and tree surgeon. The cost also of closing the road and that's not to mention the treatment in hospital. I understand they all come from different budgets but it's all still tax payers money.
The two local papers are running completely different stories on this and it'd be great to get an update. There have been flowers left at the site and I hope that's not a bad sign.
Also worth remembering that a whole tree came down in 2015 on this road again from the park albeit in high winds.

In terms of additional costs its probably not a great lot of money? All those services are already paid for.



Unfortunately that is a pretty big call, they can check for obvious signs of dead-wood or overloading but assessing the strength of the root system and strength of every branch on every tree would be an almost impossible undertaking and humongously expensive.

Unless you remove all trees from places where they are likely to injure someone then I think to a degree we have to take these random events as an act of nature much the same as earthquakes, storms, cancer and suchlike. Obviously basic checks should still be done (as they are at the moment).

Just tragic.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/mum-tree-crash-horror-loses-12163579

Very tragic.

Last Friday night when the heavens opened, all around the area where the tree has collapsed was like a swimming pool (drains not been cleared of leaves) from Thingwall roundabout onwards towards Arrowe Park. I've never seen that corner so waterlogged before and it was seriously bad. Maybe that has contributed to this dreadful happening.