In Rye Market car park on Saturday, September 24 a joint venture between Sussex Police and Sussex Fire service took place.
Demi, spokesperson for Sussex Police told me: “Our aim today is to reassure the members of the public and to keep them safer on the roads. We have one of our speed-watch co-ordinators here, Chris Hoggart, whose job is to assist as a volunteer to help slow vehicles down and prevent unnecessary accidents. We are promoting driving awareness. We want people to be much more focussed on their driving. Our job is often preventative and educational.
“We feel that many accidents that we attend could have been avoided. Our message to the public is, be more patient with road users around you. You might think that they are going too slowly but overtaking dangerously is likely to cause accidents. They might be driving that way for a reason; they might have seen a hazard that you haven’t.
Many people drive too fast because they are late, so we advise getting up earlier, getting more organised and allowing enough time to accommodate slow traffic. We work closely with our colleagues from the Sussex Fire Service who are often called out alongside us to attend accidents.”
The two services were promoting Operation Crackdown. This allows the public to report careless, dangerous or aggressive driving. They can also report vehicles driving in contravention of a prohibition, such as a weight or width restriction, or against a one-way system. The phrase “anti-social driving/riding” can cover many different behaviours on the road which may also include: using a mobile phone at the wheel and not wearing a seat belt.
Image Credits: Kt bruce .
Maybe Sussex Police could reassure the people of Rye, and get the police station open 24/7 again, and the only answer to speeding motorists,especially the race track along new winchelsea Road is a proper speed camera, would pay for itself in no time, and maybe stop another fatality on this road.
I have a dashcam and have reported several incidents to ‘Operation Crackdown’ including a speeding motorcyclist on the above road. It’s not the easiest process to go through and you never get sent back the outcome of your civil duty, plus you must have the registration of the vehicle concerned. At thirty frames a second sometimes vehicles are travelling so fast that it’s impossible to pick this up. My neck of the woods the Lydd road is basically a racetrack on Sunday mornings for motorcycles, a lot who break the decibel limit as well as the speed limit.
I rarely see actual police patrols or mobile cameras set up in and around Rye. If there is any political will around this issue then a greater police presence is required, but can we afford it?