A phone box in a lay-by on a road which has claimed the lives of six people in five years could be removed for safety reasons.

Plans are being made for the public telephone in the lay-by on the Skipton western bypass to be replaced by an emergency-only phone.

The Highways Agency pledged to take action came after the Telegraph & Argus launched a campaign to get safety measures introduced following the deaths of a 22-year-old Bradford man and a Preston woman, aged 18, in June. They were killed when their car was in collision with a lorry.

A study by the agency revealed that 80 per cent of accidents on the road were related to manoeuvres into or out of lay-bys, loss of control or overtaking.

The agency had already pledged to introduce safety measures on the road later this year after the couple were killed.

Those measures include better lane separation with hatching down the middle of the road, improved white lining and signing, and restrictions on turning in and out of the lay-bys.

Today a Highways Agency spokesman said: "The telephone in the lay-by could be removed and replaced by an emergency phone. There is concern that people are using the phone and then pulling out and doing a U turn."

Skipton traffic sergeant Tom Smart said a major danger was that people travelling north were crossing the carriageway to reach the telephone and then having to pull out across fast on-coming traffic.

"I think there should be at least an emergency phone in lay-bys on each side of the carriageway to prevent people having to go across the traffic," he said.

"Because of the volume of traffic on that road there must be a phone so people can summon help quickly in an emergency. The nearest other public phone north is at the Little Chef and south at Snaygill Industrial estate - quite a distance away."

Craven councillor Janet Gott has welcomed the proposal to replace the public phone with an emergency unit.

"We must have a phone there for emergencies - but it is not essential that it is a public phone," she said.

A British Telecom spokesman said it had not yet received a request for the phone to be moved but said it had no objections to removing it on safety grounds.

Inquests have been opened and adjourned into the deaths of Mohammed Khan, 22, from Manningham, Bradford, and Samina Hussain, 18, from Preston, who died in the crash on June 15.

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