A plea has been made for Kirkby Stephen Town Council to follow the lead of the community of Clifton who have taken matters into their own hands when it comes to the problem of tackling speeding drivers.
South Road resident Christine Halsall told a meeting of the town council that last month her car – which was legally parked outside her house – “totally written off by reckless driving at considerable speed” when the driver of a large van misjudged the width of the gap and oncoming traffic.
But Christine’s misery is not an isolated incident.
Following a social media appeal, she was inundated with reports of other incidents which had all taken place along the busy main road which runs through the town.
She took that catalogue of incidents with her to Kirkby Stephen Rugby Club where the town council was holding its monthly meeting.
“So many people have come to me with so many incidents,” said Christine, who has lived in the town for six years.
She said the list included reports of other write-offs, multiple scratches, wing mirrors being ripped off, numerous incidents of damage, and abusive behaviour from drivers who overtake cars that are waiting for oncoming traffic.
Christine said: “This is our community, our town. The drivers are just going through causing mayhem and just carrying on – but it’s us that are suffering.”
She stressed that residents do care and simply want the best for their town.
“With all this new house building happening and the population increasing, this issue is not going away. There is a bit of a boom, people are coming here, but the traffic is only going to get worse.
“Safety is paramount and action is needed to address the speeding and traffic problems of the main road before a serious accident occurs.
“Our car has gone to car heaven, but it could be a person next time,” added Christine.
She also pointed out that Clifton Community Council was using of two AutoSpeedWatch units which had been bought at a cost of £500 each.
They take a photograph of speeding vehicles and automatically monitor, log and report offenders to Cumbria police.
Vehicle registrations are then checked against DVLA records, along with make, model and colour data.
This is then logged with the date, time and speed.
Town, district and county councillor Phil Dew said: “If people drive into other vehicles, whether they be stationary, or not, it’s their responsibility.”
He said that one of the problems up South Road is that a lot of people don’t have any choice other than parking on the road.
“We have been looking at the possibility of a car park and highways officers recently visited the town and we did look at the possibility of various sites, but the trouble is that most land has some kind of outlying planning permission,” said Mr Dew.
The meeting was told the town council was already investigating new signage and town council chairman Paul Richardson thanked Christine for attending and assured her that they would look into the suggestions which had been made.
