Cycle lanes an accident waiting to happen, say GSD

The cycle lanes on Main Street and Irish town have become an accident waiting to happen, according to GSD Transport spokesperson Trevor Hammond.

Mr Hammond believes that the mix of pedestrians, bicycles and scooters and the complete lack of enforcement to prevent the use of the latter outside the times permitted have led to chaos.

"I have deliberately avoided comment on the situation in Main Street and Irish town in order to give the Government an opportunity to demonstrate that their cycle lane scheme can work,” he said.

“All that has been demonstrated is that not only is the scheme not working, but that a dangerous situation has been allowed to develop due to a total lack of resource applied to policing the scheme.”

“We now have a situation where cyclists and scooters are using the poorly defined cycle lanes at all hours of the day, at speed and often in the wrong direction and with complete disregard for the safety of pedestrians. It is an accident waiting to happen”, he added.

Mr Hammond believes in the principle of cycle lanes he feels the Government should be looking at how to segregate cyclists from both traffic and pedestrians. “Safety is paramount and the present scheme simply does provide for this,” he said.

He also states that “to make matters worse, the new phenomenon of motorised scooters, which seem to fall outside of the law yet which travel at high speed wherever their riders choose, road, pavement or pedestrianised zone, seem to be completely ignored by the authorities.”

“Most come through the frontier with no questions asked. Government must establish the legal position of these vehicles as a matter of urgency and before someone is seriously hurt,” he added.