Hopwas speed checks progress

Hopwas village near Tamworth has suffered for years from speeding traffic and HGVs using it as a cut-through despite the fact they are banned from doing so.

Early last year another problem started to get worse. And that was drivers of cars jumping the school crossing while there were youngsters using it at rush hour. It was even an issue with a crossing patrol officer there and she had a few near misses.

Parents, the headteacher and local people were all getting really concerned but eventually after some badgering from me County Highways agreed to put a safety programme together. It included new brighter, larger signage advising HGV drivers of the restrictions, targeted police operations to catch those drivers that were jumping the crossing with kids using it and also the regular use of one of the County’s speed enforcement units.

I’ve got mixed feelings on speed cameras but in this case it genuinely is a safety issue. When I joined the police doing ad-hoc speed checks eighteen months ago there were a lot of drivers over the 30 limit, a little bit, but a handful driving at nearly double the limit.

When I visited the enforcement team today I was pleased to hear that over the past few months they’d seen very few HGVs using the road through the village and had also found the speeding problems had reduced. So good news on both fronts and the presence of the police near the school crossing at key times also seems to have done the trick.

On the down side, in the 20 minutes I was there, one driver was pictured at near double the 30 limit with a couple of others on the cusp of driving sufficiently over the limit to have an unwelcome surprise in the post.

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