"There have been a few near misses"

Saturday 04 April 2020

Motorists are being asked to not speed and pedestrians to not to walk in the road without looking first in order to "prevent further accidents", as Guernsey Police take us back to basics during the lockdown.

There have been several road accidents reported since the lockdown was imposed almost two weeks ago, while feedback to officers has been that people have seen several 'near misses'.

Chief of Police Ruari Hardy said it was important to maintain road awareness and avoid unnecessary accidents, especially given the demand that our health service is already experiencing.

"The roads are a lot quieter and people generally are driving round the island at greater speeds. I would ask our drivers across the Bailiwick to be very careful of their speeds for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is that there are larger number of people out walking or taking exercise and that when individuals are doing that, sometimes they come across someone else doing that, and we are finding that pedestrians are walking out into the road without really checking for traffic.

Pictured: Mr Hardy said officers were out on the beat carrying out spot checks, whilst adhering to social distancing.

"This is about accident prevention and this is another additional demand on our health service."

Officers had asked Mr Hardy to raise the matter following a number of incidents.

"Some of our feedback is that there has been a few near misses and we want to prevent further accidents," said Mr Hardy, "so pedestrians, dog walkers, please take extra care particularly when stepping out into the road and, to drivers, please anticipate that some of the behaviours of the pedestrians on the roads won’t be as we would ordinarily expect, people do tend to be stepping out into the road to give [other people] a wide berth."

Pictured top: Guernsey Police on patrol during the lockdown.