A STRETCH of road which claimed the lives of two motorcyclists in separate fatal crashes has been targeted by police as part of a road safety operation.

The popular motorcycle route along Main Road, in Rettendon, where James Lawton, 52, from Ingatestone, and Christopher Tayler, 53, from Harold Hill, both crashed and died just a week apart was one of two sites chosen for the Essex Police operation on Sunday September 19 along with the B184 at Leaden Roding.

It aimed to raise awareness of road safety in the hope of reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured on the county’s roads.

In Rettendon mobile police officers parked up and spoke to residents about their concerns over speeding and anti-social road use and took information from any witnesses to the crashes, which happened on Sunday September 5 and Sunday September 12.

In the first crash, Mr Lawton, of Mountney Close, had been riding south ahead of four friends when his bike crashed with a silver Chevrolet Matiz driven by a 19-year-old woman around 7.30am.

Paramedics tried to revive the rider but he sadly died at the scene.

A week later, Mr Tayler, of Heaton Close, died following a crash on the same road. He was travelling towards Rettendon Turnpike when his Honda motorbike crashed with a black Ford Focus at about 3.35pm.

The driver of the car, a man, 22, from Wickford, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and has been released on bail until November while officers carry out further enquiries.

Adam Pipe, casualty reduction manager, said: “We know from neighbourhood policing that speeding and anti-social use of the road is a concern for many local communities so this was an opportunity for residents to stop by and tell us what their concerns are.

“We can then take these concerns on board and look to act on them by doing some extra speed enforcement.”

In Leaden Roding police stopped motorcyclists to chat about road safety and offered to observe their riding and sign up to an Essex Police Bike Safe course.

Mr Pipe said: “We’re continuously looking to drive down the number of people killed or seriously injured on motorcycles across Essex.

“We still have an alarming number of incidents on the roads involving motorcycles. In fact we still have more motorcyclist casualties as a result of incidents in the county than the whole of Wales put together.”