A CRACKDOWN on speeding and anti-social driving – which will see States and honorary police officers conducting checks across the Island – is due to start next week.
The initiative forms part of Road Safety Week, a major campaign held each year by the charity Brake, which works with communities and organisations across the UK to help prevent road deaths and injuries.
Inspector Callum O’Connor, who leads on roads policing, said: “Our message is clear – slow down. We are a small community, we all share these areas and we deserve to be safe while doing so. We should all drive responsibly and safely. Driving faster makes stopping quickly less likely and the greater the impact speed the greater the chance of causing serious injury or death to those involved in a collision.
“Some of the speeds we see are just not acceptable for an island of this size.”
He added: “We continue to search for proactive ways to reduce [the number of people] who regularly break the limits of the Island’s roads and pose the most danger to the community.
“We will be focusing our attention on a number of specific roads which have been brought to our attention through online reporting, regular complaints from the public and, most importantly, where our data shows us speeding occurs the most.
“I would also like to once again remind Islanders to always drive to the conditions of the road. This is even more important as we continue to go through this unsettled period of weather with a vast amount of debris on the roads. Drive carefully and considerately and always to the speed limits of the road, ensuring you keep yourself and everyone around you safe.”
Alistair Mitchell, a member of the Cycle4Jersey advocacy group, said he welcomed the force’s attempts to “clampdown” on bad driving.
He explained: “Anything that is going to improve driving standards and safety on the roads will benefit everybody.”
He added that Islanders also needed to move away from an “us vs them” mentality regarding different types of road users, such as drivers vs cyclists.
“Everyone has a right to be there and it’s up to everybody to look after everyone else – nobody wants an accident,” Mr Mitchell said.
