We’re cracking down on crime (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

We’re cracking down on crime

2:00pm Wednesday 24th October 2012 in Lyme Regis By Adrianne Maslen

POLICE are targeting known speeding hotspots and finding local people are the worst offenders.

Officers from the Lyme Regis Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) are cracking down on speeding motorists in a bid to make Dorset’s roads safer.

They handed out 12 speeding tickets in just two weeks on a single stretch of road after catching drivers with the handheld speed gun.

Among the main offenders have been delivery drivers, retired people, commuters, and parents dropping children off at school.

Officers divide their time between all the areas covered by the Lyme Regis SNT – from Thorncombe to Morcombelake and all the villages in between.

PCSO Luke White said: “We generally go out two or three times a week and target different areas.

“We go at different times of the day so there’s no pattern.

“We need people to tell us about problems. If anyone knows somewhere where cars are speeding we are more than happy to go along with our gun.

“This comes under the No Excuse campaign banner but we haven’t got traffic officers here, we are doing it ourselves.

“It’s all got the same aim, to make the roads safer.

“We are local to the area so we get told where the problems are and we can react to what people are complaining about.

“The majority of offenders do live locally and when we explain that it’s local residents that are complaining, they appreciate we are there because the residents want us to be there.”

PCSO White said the three hotspots in their patch are outside Marshwood School and into the village, near Charmouth School at the beginning and end of the school day, and Charmouth Road in Lyme Regis in the mornings.

He said four speeding tickets were issued in one day in Charmouth last week, with the fastest doing 57mph in a 30mph area.

“Near the Stonebarrow Lane turning on the approach into the east side of Charmouth, that’s where we have been getting quite high speeds,” he said.

“So far this month we have given out 12 tickets on that stretch of the road in Charmouth.

“We get a lot of complaints about Marshwood and the speed van has also been there.

“The type of people we catch speeding depends on the time of day.

“In Charmouth they were all local people and they were all middle aged or above. In Marshwood in the middle of the day it is usually drivers of commercial vehicles.

“The vast majority are given fixed penalty tickets or they can elect to go to court instead.”

PCSO White said although they receive numerous complaints about Timber Hill in Lyme Regis, they have not found a speeding problem there.

He said: “As the council has found out when they did their analysis, we are not finding the evidence to back it up.

“People are perceiving speeds are higher than they are but we do go up there and will continue to do so.”

Marshwood Vale county councillor Geoffrey Brierley recently reported that a road safety audit carried out in July revealed there has been a drop in speed since the 2009 audit and no collisions in the last five years.

Coun Brierley said: “The road safety team at the county council said they do not feel it would be appropriate to put speed humps on Timber Hill.”

Lyme Regis Town Council has recently pledged to deploy its Speed Indicator Device (SID) around the town more often.