AN ANXIOUS mother from Mountnessing is pleading with Essex County Council to clamp down on speeding vehicles in her road after a series of accidents which have wrecked her property and put her baby at risk.
Keely Harbot, 36, has labelled the 60mph St Anne's Road, off Roman Road, a deathtrap.
In the past eight years, she believes there have been at least 20 crashes near her cottage on the road, which links Roman Road to Thoby Lane.
Indeed, on one occasion she heard screeching tyres and smashing metal as she put her one-year-old daughter, Oriana, into a car just metres away.
Mrs Harbot, a lawyer, who moved into her cottage with husband Richard, 36, in 2008, says accidents stopped outside her house during an 18-month period in which a fence was situated at the boundary of their property.
Before the fence was erected, four cars left the road and entered their garden, smashing two fences and a brick pillar.
After the fence was replaced with an £11,000 holly hedge in August, she says there have been at least ten prangs next to their home.
In early November, a driver ploughed into the Harbots' hedge, and the same day another five vehicles crashed trying to avoid the damaged car.
On December 3, while the family were not at home, a Range Rover careered from the road and destroyed almost a third (11m) of the hedge.
Then just a week later, a car crashed opposite their cottage, and a motorcycle then smashed into the car.
Two weeks before Christmas, a man had a lucky escape when he roared through the gaping hole in the hedge and into the Harbots' garage, his car stopping just inches from a gas canister.
Having contacted Brentwood Borough Council about the problems in January 2010 and Essex county councillor Dr Ann Naylor earlier this month, Mrs Harbot, whose company car was damaged in the latest incident, says she has little confidence anything will change.
Mrs Harbot said: "Do we have to wait for someone to be seriously injured or killed before anything gets done? Because that's what it seems like."
Having originally been told there was "no budget" for traffic-calming measures by a member of BBC staff, she turned to Brentwood's MP Eric Pickles at the end of last year as the number of accidents increased again.
His parliamentary assistant Karen Sheehan then put her on to Dr Naylor and the Gazette.
Mrs Harbot said: "I have spoken to Ann Naylor and she said 'we can try' but I am not getting any confidence that anything is going to be done.
"Ten accidents already [since November] and now we are expecting to get much worse weather. What is going to happen then?"
