Commuter drivers pose danger to Stanley school kids

May 25 2010 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

COMMUTER motorists placing school children’s lives at risk have prompted urgent calls for counter measures in Stanley.

Perth and Kinross Council has agreed to install a traffic calming device near the zebra crossing outside Stanley Primary School after community council members debriefed a council engineer about the risky business.

Local councillor, Barbara Vaughan, said some commuters using the village as a rat run to avoid congested bridge traffic in Perth, ignored the 20mph speed limit around the school in mornings and afternoons.

“When you come into Stanley from the north, the road slopes downwards, so it’s almost an incentive not to slow down really, which is a big problem,” she told the PA.

“It’s a very busy road in the mornings and afternoons, with commuters heading towards Perth on the A9 through Stanley and onto the Kinclaven Road and the A93.

“That’s why we’ve been pushing for a third bridge over the Tay, which would be north of Inveralmond Industrial Estate across to Scone, but that unfortunately is still a dream.”

A local woman, who identified herself only as Miss C, told the PA that many drivers appeared to ignore the female crossing supervisor and the ‘slow’ signs at the crossing, which did not feature flashing lights.

“All drivers seem to do is shout and swear and speed past the slow signs – maybe they’d get it if a child’s coffin was across the zebra crossing!” she said.

Willie Lindsay, chair of Stanley Community Council, said although Miss C’s comments were extreme – and while he had never witnessed any near misses – some motorists clearly disobeyed the road rules.

He said the community council had been concerned about the crossing issue for several years, concurring with Cllr Vaughan that it was commuter drivers – not local motorists – who were at fault.

“It’s not so much speeding but the sheer volume of traffic, plus the fact that parents and kids tend to gather near the crossing and motorists don’t know whether to stop or carry on sometimes,” he said.

“The second thing is the fact that drivers are so used to traffic lights at pedestrian crossings nowadays as opposed to crossing supervisors, so some drivers are not stopping to the same extent.

“I sincerely hope that the traffic calming measures the council is putting in will help, I really do, otherwise nothing short of traffic lights is going to solve the problem.”