A POLICE sergeant is urging motorists in west Dorset to slow down in order to prevent serious collisions.

Sgt Stuart Pitman, who leads Dorset Police's No Excuse team, is urging people to "modify their behaviour" after several collisions on the A35 and rural roads.

He said: "We have got about 15 live sites in the Bridport area that we try and cover. "We have to be able to justify where we are going. Sometimes we respond to serious complaints from the public. When we come to Bridport, we also try to visit Marshwood and a lot of west Dorset as there are a lot or collisions reported on the country roads in that part of the county.

"We want people to realise that if they do offend, they will get caught. I want people to feel guilty when they are stopped by us. We have got to get people to modify their behaviour."

Sgt Pitman said he was aware that many collisions involved people unfamiliar with the roads, but that the "common sense approach" was not working.

He added: "We have a lot of holiday traffic going through that area and a lot of people who are maybe unfamiliar with the roads, which we tend to find in a high proportion of collisions.

"We would like to be everywhere all of the time, but that is obviously not possible.

"People say that speed doesn't cause collisions, but people simply do not adhere to the speed limit, and it is dangerous and causes a lot of these collisions.

"People just need to drive according to the conditions and do not take chances. The speed limit is not a target and you are the faster you are going, the less chance you have of avoiding a collision."