This driver was probably only doing a few MPH over the 40MPH limit which is quite fast enough for a rural road. There is an A-road alternative for those 'in a hurry' but such carnage is a regular occurance.
* @7pm in the morning in the winter the whole area can be fogged up and it was dark. I've driven down and cycled down there when it wouldn't have been safe doing 15mph.
* Animals can be hard to see, even in good conditions. Especially the donkeys, they are grey, on a black road and the sky is normally grey in England. Many of the animals there have high-vis collars to make them more visible at night.
* It depends what section of the road. In one section of that road the visibility is excellent (when there isn't fog). In another stretch even in the summer, the visibility is weird due to much of the road being in partial shade due to the trees.
* Drivers go much faster than the 40mph limit in that area almost all the time, especially on the high visibility parts. It doesn't help that if you come off the M25/A31 you would have been going about 70mph and so doing 40mph makes it feels so slow that you can step out of the car.
* The three A-roads near are either blocked due to heavy traffic especially in the summer (infrastructure in general is a joke in Hampshire and Dorset) or they don't go where you want.
Not at all. I've been driving at what seems like a sensible speed for the conditions and suddenly there is a deer right in front of my car. You cannot see some of the animals until you are right on top of them.
The fact is that there is too much traffic, there is insufficient infrastructure (and you probably can't add a lot because you will spoil the place) and there are animals freely roaming around. It is recipe of animal deaths in that area.
I dunno what the answer is. Paying the police to put up another gatso van isn't going to solve it though.