Coast road campaigners hand petition to minister
Tuesday 19th July 2011, 2:58PM BST.
Campaigners present the petition to Transport Minister Mike Jackson
A PETITION calling for a road in St Clement that has claimed the lives of two people to be made safer has been presented to the Transport Minister.
Campaigners living near St Clement’s Coast Road want parking on the road to be outlawed and speed cameras installed before someone else is killed.
Yesterday the Coast Road Road Safety Group presented a petition signed by more than 200 residents to Transport Minister Mike Jackson and told him that ‘something had to be done’.
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Waste of time.
If you put a couple of speed cameras in, the position of the units will be learnt and people will speed between them, slamming on the brakes as they arrive at the cameras. It’ll catch the odd motorist doing 36mph in a 30, but won’t make any impact to the hardcore speeders aiming to hit 100mph+ at 2am.
I don’t see how eliminating road parking will make much difference – if someone is able to drive into a stationary object, whether that object is a car, wall or lamp post is pretty irrelevant.
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The coast road between St Clement and Gorey is extremely dangerous with a great deal of the road not even having pavements. For some time I have thought that a 30 mile an hour limit along the full length of this coast road would be more appropriate. We often have speeding vehicles passing our house and this is an area with a bus stop and no pavements. Children have to walk along the road from the bus with little or no protection from the traffic. I quite agree with the article and think that the whole area should be monitored with regard to imposing a safer speed limit.
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The road is perfectly safe, it has a 30mph speed limit, all we need to do now is police it and enforce existing limits.
One life was lost due to a speeding police officer, the other due to a motorist losing control in the early hours of the morning, why we have yet to be told.
Put speed cameras here and the rest of the island will follow. Speed doesn’t kill, bad driving does, take all the excessive speeders off the road and all the coffin dodgers hunched over the wheel at 20mph with them.
This will leave only responsible drivers and women, nothing we can do about them I’m afraid.
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This road has a 30mph limit due to Len Norman (that’s another story) and both fatalities occurred due to bad driving, why don’t we just ban cars and be done with it, after all they don’t spend the money on the roads anyway !!!
Incidentally, some councils in the UK are now removing speed bumps on main roads as they are illegal – are you listening Jersey!!!
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Ugh, why can’t these car-botherers be happy with the 30mph limit they’ve already managed to have imposed?
The deaths that have occurred along this road would not have been prevented by the new 30mph speed limit, or by any proposed yellow lines or speed cameras. These accidents were all caused by poor or reckless driving, i.e., people not following the entirely adequate existing road rules and controls.
If any of these campaigners are on here, would they care to reply, stating what exactly the motivation behind their petition is, and what precisely they hope that yellow lines and speed cameras will achieve?
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A simple and reasonable request which has, for what it is worth, my full support. Where are my St Clements deputies? This is a time for them to get off their soap boxes and to be counted.
Remember there are elections in October.
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The circumstances surounding the recent deaths on the coast road has nothing to do with either parking or the original 40MPH speed limit. Please investigate the facts!
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How about cutting the width along the whole road from Gorey to Havres Des Pas and making a cycle path?
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I fail to see what this is all about. Parked cars did not contribute to the accidents listed in any way, so why a yellow line and total ban on parking.
The population are quick to criticise the States but this is about a bunch or residents shooting off based on no factual evidence, and sadly, a polititian who I thought made a valid contribution to the island seems to have been drawn into this hysteria
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Why don’t we go the whole hog and go back to the olden days (most of the petition signers probably hark back to them)
The Locomotive Act 1865′ (or ‘Red Flag Act’). The bill requires a motor vehicle regardless of the purpose must have a red flag bearer leads the way.
I live on this road and nobody asked me to sign a petition. I guess I was out at work trying to pay my 20/20 tax bill, rather than nimbying about after my trip to the garden centre (in the middle of the rush hour?).
What about a compromise, NO PARKING and a nice 50MPH clear hack through this lovely stretch of road? A nice risk based approach.
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p.s. I don’t my speed cameras, as long as I know where they are!
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I agree that the stretch of road heading from Green Island to the Parish Hall is dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. But how many accidents have there been on this specific stretch of road ?
So why use irrelevant facts to support introducing cameras – two fatal accidents on a different stretch of the road (1/2 a mile or so away)have no bearing on the stretch of road in question. What about the incident on the pedestrian crossing near M&S – nowhere near the stretch of road in question. And I don’t think the two cyclists who succeeded in crashing into one another would have avoided an accident if there was a speed camera.
What I do know is that I very nearly had a nasty accident on the stretch of the road in question when a car driver pulled out of their driveway without looking and nearly caused a collision. Their response when I follwoed them into the co-op car park and challenged their driving skills was ‘well it’s only a 30mph limit and it would not have been a bad accident’.
Speeding is not the prolem. Bad driving is. END OF ARGUMENT.
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“.. sadly, a polititian who I thought made a valid contribution to the island seems to have been drawn into this hysteria.” – Warren J (9)
I presume you are referring to Senator Ben Shenton here as he presented this petition to the Transport Minister? In case you don’t know, this road safety campaign is closely linked to another one that is centred on an area outside Dick Shenton’s compound and he has already appeared on TV about that.
In less than 3 months, Shenton junior will be seeking the votes of St Clement electors so this explains why he is suddenly interested in presenting this petition in front of the cameras. What convenient timing that the father also decides to go public about the apparent dangers of the road, despite having lived there quietly for more than 20 years.
Get smart and see through this people!
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No 2 Pat Panter
How do you know they were speeding did you have a speed gun? In any case absolute speed is less of an issue than dangereous driving. It is the idiots doing 80 late at night that cause the problem. The other issue is the do gooders dripping around at 28mph in the outside late of the avenue and on main roads thinking they are a moving speed limit. They then hoot and flash when you overtake is if you have done something wrong!
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I’m as much of a car / bike fan as the next man, and would love to have the opportunity to ‘open the taps’ once in a while, but isn’t that what the Hill Climb and Sprints are for?
We live along this road, and the cars parked down there are a nightmare, every day on the way to and from work I see bikes, cars, buses and trucks swerving in and out of the legitimate parking areas – it is dangerous and coupled with the decidedly poor standard of driving on this island (I am local, so I can say that!) – just another accident waiting to happen.
There are several car parks along this road for beach access, both at Green Island and a little further along towards Marks and Sparks (where most of the problems and accidents happen)- so why not use those??
As for tackling the bigger problem of the poor driving skills here, why do we not look at the possibility of a mandatory driving assessment every 5-10 years? I did my CBT when applying for my motorbike license after 15 years of driving and was amazed as to the bad/lazy habits I had adopted. It doesn’t need to be a test where you win or lose, just a refresher course and assessment … as for the cost, if we don’t feel that safety is not worth £20 or £30 every few years to make us better and safer, isn’t it a sad world we live in?
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I would have thought that parked cars on the side of the road would naturally help to slow down the traffic. Believe me, on a sunny day along La Mare, you cannot move for parked cars, so I would have thought that this grey brigade would welcome the on road parking. Obviously they have nothing better to moan about for now.
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Great to see the NIMBY crowd is in full effect again. Maybe we should go down the Sark route and stick with bicycles, tractors and horse and cart..
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Without judging individual cases just bear in mind on the days of the accidents thousands of other cars passed the area without incident so please reach your own conclusions.
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Yes #13, I did see senior on the telly outside of hotel where they have delayed the building of a refuge.
Junior’s support for a petition based on irrelevant facts does in my mind question if I should vote for him.
Back to the road, not sure what can really be done, other than to close it to traffic and grass it over !!!
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A couple of observations on this being from the UK but 15 yr over here.
1.Make the coast road yellow lines along this stretch of road and you’ll have the best short racetrack this side of Silverstone. The boy racers won’t be able to resist it.
2.Introduce traffic calming measures such as chicanes as in lower Green St will also only invite Lewis Hamilton wannabes to test their skills.
3.I am guessing that the majority of people who want yellow lines introduced all along the road all have driveways,garages and park right outside their homes,they will say that there are car parks for people to park in but they may be several hundreds of yards for some people to walk to and from,usually with shopping, children etc.NIMBYism at its finest.
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I meant to add on at the end ( but forgot had a vino or 12 )that the only real way to solve this problem is with proper policing of the laws already in force!!!
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