OK BiBs, what would YOU do?
Discussion
I have lived in the Scottish Borders now for just a year, and posted some months ago about trying to improve the driving standards locally, referring in particular to parking problems in the High Street.
Due to new business pressures I have had no time to appoint to this until now; but today's fiasco was the last straw, and I am determined that the situation is attacked with a vengeance.
Since moving here we have had all five of our vehicles bumped, marked and scratched at various times, all of them when unattended.
Our Community Officer had her car seriously damaged while parked in the supermarket. Not once has anyone owned up, and this in what is supposed to be a small, caring community.
Today I witnessed a Land Rover Discovery drive along the High Street, see another wider vehicle approaching and, rather than stop behind a parked car to enable the other to pass, without dropping speed drove straight onto the PAVEMENT!: all four wheels, ran along for about forty feet, passing shop doorways within inches, then bumped back onto the road into the path of an oncoming van driver who had to slam his brakes on to avoid a head on.
Remember, this is mid afternoon in the High Street!
He drove on without a pause wearing a stupid grin: a middle age man in a virtually new vehicle.
My last enquiry to the traffic department met with a pleasant but weary response from the C.I. informing me that he had only four trained and qualified Traffic Officers in two Traffic Cars; a Merc 320 and a T5: and this to cover the whole of the eastern part of the borders.
The current council response to road safety is to send out one traffic warden every two to three weeks who issues tickets for exceeding the half hour waiting time in the High Street, and the totally predictable sighting of a handful of speed cameras in the safest of locations throughout the roads system.
Every year the fatalities rise, and I can honestly say that in all the years I have been driving, and all the areas and countries I have driven in, I have never experienced anything like what goes on here.
We HAVE to do something, but what?
That is the question; where do I start?
Suggestions most welcome.
Due to new business pressures I have had no time to appoint to this until now; but today's fiasco was the last straw, and I am determined that the situation is attacked with a vengeance.
Since moving here we have had all five of our vehicles bumped, marked and scratched at various times, all of them when unattended.
Our Community Officer had her car seriously damaged while parked in the supermarket. Not once has anyone owned up, and this in what is supposed to be a small, caring community.
Today I witnessed a Land Rover Discovery drive along the High Street, see another wider vehicle approaching and, rather than stop behind a parked car to enable the other to pass, without dropping speed drove straight onto the PAVEMENT!: all four wheels, ran along for about forty feet, passing shop doorways within inches, then bumped back onto the road into the path of an oncoming van driver who had to slam his brakes on to avoid a head on.
Remember, this is mid afternoon in the High Street!
He drove on without a pause wearing a stupid grin: a middle age man in a virtually new vehicle.
My last enquiry to the traffic department met with a pleasant but weary response from the C.I. informing me that he had only four trained and qualified Traffic Officers in two Traffic Cars; a Merc 320 and a T5: and this to cover the whole of the eastern part of the borders.
The current council response to road safety is to send out one traffic warden every two to three weeks who issues tickets for exceeding the half hour waiting time in the High Street, and the totally predictable sighting of a handful of speed cameras in the safest of locations throughout the roads system.
Every year the fatalities rise, and I can honestly say that in all the years I have been driving, and all the areas and countries I have driven in, I have never experienced anything like what goes on here.
We HAVE to do something, but what?
That is the question; where do I start?
Suggestions most welcome.
Any BiBs can deal with this, doesn't have to be RPU. Better still will be an officer who is aiming for RPU and can make this their project. Beat officers will have a bit more time to look into this than response officers. See if you can make contact with your local beat sergeant.
Contact your MSP about the matter, they will then write to the BIBs asking what action they are taking which will bump it up the list a bit.
Contact your local paper and see if they will do a feature.
Speak to council and see if they will install bollards/ railings on pavements to stop people driving along them.
Get as many people to complain to police & council as possible so that it is made a priority.
Contact your MSP about the matter, they will then write to the BIBs asking what action they are taking which will bump it up the list a bit.
Contact your local paper and see if they will do a feature.
Speak to council and see if they will install bollards/ railings on pavements to stop people driving along them.
Get as many people to complain to police & council as possible so that it is made a priority.
Edited by Sheriff JWPepper on Saturday 1st March 00:02
Jasandjules said:
Do you have CCTV - do any of the shops have CCTV of the LR driver?
Suggest getting press involved. Road Safety my A*£e..
Well J&J, I'm afraid we are way past that stage.Suggest getting press involved. Road Safety my A*£e..
When my wife's car was marked I went the whole way with complaints to the police to discover that there were actually CCTV cameras installed in the town; cameras I had no knowledge of or was even aware of simply because they are mounted on huge poles fifty feet high and look like lamps, not cameras.
I further discovered that they had been installed by the council after they received a grant to do so: but this was followed by an adventurous individual on the committee "doing a deal" with an Edinburgh electronics company who installed the system. After a matter of days and a complaint from the police that the system didn't work, it was discovered that they had installed old stock analogue cameras that are not compatible with the police computer system, and they are mounted so high as to be useless as evidential material; the image is dreadful.
On the video we watched an old chap in a Volvo estate making no less than six attempts to reverse into a parking space behind my wife's car; he was of course on the wrong side of the road facing into oncoming traffic and causing a huge jam at the time; on the seventh attempt he lost his patience and took the corner off her front bumper and hit the car behind him. He just left his vehicle and went shopping as if nothing had happened.
I was told by the police that because the images were of such poor quality the Fiscal would not use them as evidence so, despite the fact that we KNOW who this individual is and they could have examined his car for damage, nothing was done.
What I and a few others have to try and do is get it through the clearly thick skulls of the perpetrators and those with the ability to make a difference, is the fact that the parking thing has to be seen not so much as an isolated offence, but more an indication of mentality of the most dangerous kind when it is elevated to behaviour out on the open road. Those who demonstrate such total disregard for others are a dangerous menace when actually driving at speed and have to be dealt with; there is no other answer other than the chaos we have now.
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