Doctor Who's daughter Lally Baker hurt in pothole crash

4:28pm Thursday 7th February 2013 in News By Lawrence Dunhill

Lally and Colin with her car this morning Lally and Colin with her car this morning

THE daughter of ex-Doctor Who star Colin Baker ‘thought she was going to die’ after a pothole caused her car to spin and crash into a tree.

Lally Baker, 22, was driving home in busy traffic on Wednesday evening when she suddenly spun off the 50mph Amersham Road heading towards High Wycombe.

Her blue Nissan Micra was written off and she suffered a badly bruised nose, but she was able to walk away from the accident, which happened near the Earl Howe Road turn-off for Holmer Green.

She told the Bucks Free Press: "It was very scary. The first thing I thought was I was going to die. There was blood on my face and I didn’t know where that was coming from...

"The pothole came out of nowhere. I think the wheel got stuck in it and just spun me around. I just spiralled off the road and that’s where I met a tree.

"I’m okay but I’ve got a very blue nose. Thankfully the airbag and seatbelt did their job."

Relieved dad Colin, who writes a column in the BFP and recently competed in the ‘I’m a Celebrity’ jungle, said: "She walked away but if you look at the car you wouldn’t think that was possible."

Lally, who lives in Cadmore End and works for a charity in London, said a small section of the road was coned off on Wednesday with a sign saying ‘Slow - Failed Road Surface’, and she drove round this at about 40mph.

But after recovering the car yesterday morning she said the coned area had been widened to cover the nasty pothole. It is not clear who moved the cones.

The former Great Marlow School pupil added: "It’s a lot bigger than I thought it was. It's about one-and-a-half or two inches deep, but it’s just very wide and covers a long length of road.

"Perhaps the council could have done more and put the cones around a wider area to be 100 per cent sure."

Rosemary Bryant, a spokesman for Bucks County Council, said: "We are clearly very sorry that someone has had an accident.

"We had this road defect called through on Friday afternoon as a two hour call out and our Amersham depot gang went out to make it safe. The area has been coned off as a result of the request."

She said crews have been booked in to repair the road between February 18 - 20.

The cold snap has caused a number of potholes to appear and those requiring urgent attention should be reported on 0845 230 2882, she added.

Comments(29)

Cressex Offender says...
4:57pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Potholes don't cause you to spin off the road at 50mph I'm afraid. I live in the area and I have encountered many potholes, not once have i spun off the road at 50mph as a result.

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Cressex Offender says...
5:02pm Thu 7 Feb 13

I hate potholes as much as the next man and I agree the council needs to pull it's finger out an fix them but that is not solely down to a pothole. Top pandering to a columnist BFP.

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Marmite XO says...
5:17pm Thu 7 Feb 13

This all sounds a bit suspicious. Only going 40mph, cones being mysteriously moved, the council getting blamed, inconclusive photographic evidence - were the cones moved again. I hope the BFP isn't aiding a cover up?

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BOOKERite says...
5:44pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Is this really a new worthy article? Oh, I forgot it is 'ex Doctor Who actor'

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buser says...
5:51pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Last years "repaired" potholes are back, just even bigger and better than before. Honestly, there isn't a local road that hasn't got several so at this rate, the local roads should be littered with write offs. Fortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case. Very glad the young lady in this case wasn't more seriously injured.

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s6blr says...
6:30pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Bucks Council is doing NOTHING FAST to fix all the gaping, dangerous potholes on that road. From one end to the other it is a dangerous unlit road where one takes their chances EVERY TIME you drive it for the large holes.

Even IF you go onto BucksCC website and register the holes, they don't fix them promptly when you spend the time to spell out where they are.

I'm frankly surprised there are not more articles of this nature for that road!

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RenegadeJ007 says...
6:35pm Thu 7 Feb 13

There is a very large squared shape pothole which is quite deep on that stretch of the road mentioned in the story above. You will come across it if you are driving towards High Wycombe There is absolutely no warning or indication that the pothole is there and its the case of last second veer away !! and that can cause you to overturn especially in a Micra. Our roads and our taxes and simply eroding away by the incompetent, useless greedy Wycombe council decision makers, earning for failures and here we are trying to work out whether speed was to blame !

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tomcat says...
6:44pm Thu 7 Feb 13

The pothole looked quite small but it was bigger once she was in it I guess.

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Sparkles26 says...
6:51pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Wonder if this would have been reported if it was anyone else!

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MCarey says...
7:54pm Thu 7 Feb 13

why do the council put out the signs to say "road surface failed" its an emergency so blooming well fix it immediately. the poor girl mustve been terrified and its no wonder someone hasnt been killed because the council have so neglected the roads in the Hazlemere/Holmer Green area we get the last of everyting here.

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pennperson says...
7:56pm Thu 7 Feb 13

This is a really nasty pothole which as a regular user of the road I take pains to avoid. The cones aren't really very effective as a signal to drivers to steer clear as traffic tends to bump/move them.

Disappointing it's taking so long to get fixed - on the positive side getting this in the BFP paper edition will be a warning to all locals.

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Voyeur says...
8:54pm Thu 7 Feb 13

RenegadeJ007 wrote:
There is a very large squared shape pothole which is quite deep on that stretch of the road mentioned in the story above. You will come across it if you are driving towards High Wycombe There is absolutely no warning or indication that the pothole is there and its the case of last second veer away !! and that can cause you to overturn especially in a Micra. Our roads and our taxes and simply eroding away by the incompetent, useless greedy Wycombe council decision makers, earning for failures and here we are trying to work out whether speed was to blame !
It is the responsibility of Bucks County Council not Wycombe District Council.

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wiseman1 says...
9:33pm Thu 7 Feb 13

People are just fed up with the state of our roads these days. Incompetent county councillors just blindly drive on local roads and don’t notice the problem areas. We have one such councillor in Oakridge and Castlefield Ward whose motto is, “local residents like to be spoon fed , why don’t they help themselves and report the cases that are on their door steps”
When elected representatives become arrogant and complacent then things go from bad to worse and County Council gets the blame. Please take care when driving on Copy ground Lane and Desborough Park Road, some real deep potholes there.

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shaky2 says...
1:06am Fri 8 Feb 13

The pothole came out of nowhere? Was this like the Tardis does.

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J B Blackett says...
2:06am Fri 8 Feb 13

It's one of those Space-time warp travel stories ..
.
Or put it another way - some BFP reporter has got the time (and space) for a warped story about a traveller.

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J B Blackett says...
2:09am Fri 8 Feb 13

shaky2 wrote:
The pothole came out of nowhere? Was this like the Tardis does.
Sounds like one of those 'black' holes to me. They can suck you in , you know (allegedly)

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Minority Report says...
6:44am Fri 8 Feb 13

'BfB's' Bad roads for Bucks should give up repairing local roads, and hand responsibility in full to a private company, may be Richard Branson's Virgin could take over! In the last year I have suffered 2 instantaneous tyre deflationary from potholes, on both occasions the tyres had to be replaced , its not what you would call environmently friendly replacing tyres that are only 5 months old. The damage to car suspensions must be emmense, damage possibly not immediately noticed. 'Bad roads for Bucks' give up and let an organisation that can do the job do it.

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washondo says...
8:02am Fri 8 Feb 13

Minority Report wrote:
'BfB's' Bad roads for Bucks should give up repairing local roads, and hand responsibility in full to a private company, may be Richard Branson's Virgin could take over! In the last year I have suffered 2 instantaneous tyre deflationary from potholes, on both occasions the tyres had to be replaced , its not what you would call environmently friendly replacing tyres that are only 5 months old. The damage to car suspensions must be emmense, damage possibly not immediately noticed. 'Bad roads for Bucks' give up and let an organisation that can do the job do it.
What? And get rid of two levels of administration? Silly.

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Mr Totterdge Hill says...
8:41am Fri 8 Feb 13

buser wrote:
Last years "repaired" potholes are back, just even bigger and better than before. Honestly, there isn't a local road that hasn't got several so at this rate, the local roads should be littered with write offs. Fortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case. Very glad the young lady in this case wasn't more seriously injured.
Just looking at the picture shows that this is just one of the botch job repairs.
I noticed this last Tuesday and reported it online... so repairs are going to take 2 weeks to arrange?

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Mr Totterdge Hill says...
8:44am Fri 8 Feb 13

pennperson wrote:
This is a really nasty pothole which as a regular user of the road I take pains to avoid. The cones aren't really very effective as a signal to drivers to steer clear as traffic tends to bump/move them.

Disappointing it's taking so long to get fixed - on the positive side getting this in the BFP paper edition will be a warning to all locals.
Even more reason why the local radio station used to work... if you noticed something like this it got broadcast so everyone knew about it and slowed down.

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pennman says...
11:03am Fri 8 Feb 13

I saw that pothole last week when driving to Amersham. She is right, the cones are just immediately over the pothole, there is no real warning in advance and it is very difficult to see if you are behind a lorry or other large vehicle. In fact, you have to swerve almost to the other side of the road (into incoming cars) to avoid it. This is particularly worrying if travelling in the other direction and all of a sudden someone swerves violently almost into your path.

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ImpeturbableLawrence says...
12:10pm Fri 8 Feb 13

J B Blackett wrote:
shaky2 wrote:
The pothole came out of nowhere? Was this like the Tardis does.
Sounds like one of those 'black' holes to me. They can suck you in , you know (allegedly)
Phwoaarr!

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J B Blackett says...
1:28pm Sat 9 Feb 13

ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:
J B Blackett wrote:
shaky2 wrote:
The pothole came out of nowhere? Was this like the Tardis does.
Sounds like one of those 'black' holes to me. They can suck you in , you know (allegedly)
Phwoaarr!
Are you attempting to play golf ?
.
In that case , please stay off the road - and for everybody's sake , avoid large ground-level depressions otherwise your balls might become difficult to retrieve

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dbanes says...
3:00pm Sun 10 Feb 13

I drove into this whilst following another car that also did same a week or so back and I can tell you it was no ordinary pot hole. It was/is a depression in the road of at least a few inches deep , several feet wide and more long.

I can see that someone could loose control of the vehicle if they hit it wheel on edge for example and not straight in and out, possibly after trying to avoid it.

It took me by surprise in the dark and shook me up for a minute and I've got many miles of rallying experience behind me. That's the sort of obstacle that would be in a co-drivers notes as 'caution' or 'keep right' to avoid it!

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shaky2 says...
1:16am Mon 11 Feb 13

Well one good thing at least she had a Doctor close by saves going to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

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KPlumridge says...
8:34am Mon 11 Feb 13

The roads are getting worse and lots of pot holes have not been repaired properly so they appear again and again getting worse each time. Roads should not be allowed to get in this state as more serious accidents will start happening.

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TimGriff6 says...
10:02am Mon 11 Feb 13

When I checked 2 weeks ago with a view to reporting it, the hole was shown on the BCC web site as being reported back in January. It has now been removed from there.
It is much deeper than 2" on the line of the gullies. It was partially full of water which had frozen on the night of the accident. There are no street lights along that section of road which has a 50mph limit. It was an accident waiting to happen in January. If the cones are around the outside, limiting the carriageway to the point where lorries have to cross the white line to miss it, it is still an accident waiting to happen now. The next one may be worse.
Is someone at BCC criminally negligent in delaying repairs?

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pennperson says...
8:37pm Wed 13 Feb 13

Drove by on Tues and it's mended! BCC seem to have responded to the PR and notwithstanding the bad weather pulled out their digits to fix it!

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Graveyard says...
6:44am Fri 15 Feb 13

There is absolutely no way you can do that to your car by hitting a pothole at 40 mph.

It must have been the Silents.

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