Slow down alert as speed limit ignored
Councillor says locals are trying to wave down drivers
Desperate residents are trying to wave down motorists speeding in Perthshire, according to an elected member.
The remark was made by Cllr Bob Brawn during a housing and communities committee this week when the enforcement of new 20mph speed limits that have been implemented across Perth and Kinross over the past year was brought up.
But Cllr Brawn said most drivers were travelling well over that speed in Bridge of Cally and said annoyed locals were putting themselves in danger trying to wave traffic down.
His comments came after the latest quarterly report from Police Scotland for Perth and Kinross on Monday.
Cllr Brawn said: “We’ve been finding for most of the time people are coming through well above 20mph - ignoring it completely.
“We have been fortunate and had the police here in Bridge of Cally several times but they seem to be more along the lines of educate rather than enforce.
“I’m just wondering - now these limits are in place - are we able to start enforcing the speed limits and for the police to actually issue penalty tickets rather than just educate because that doesn’t seem to be working?”
In response, Chief Inspector Andrew Todd said: “The 20mph speed limits are quite a challenge I think for all of us, not just within the police service.
“There are some clear Scottish Government guidelines around the introductions of 20mph limits and they are expected to be self-enforcing limits.
“The challenge we have as a service is 20mph limits are put up and then the responsibility to ensure that people observe them is passed to the police who have an enforcement responsibility.”
He said it was at officers’ discretion whether or not to issue speeding tickets.
CI Todd said: “I personally would not push towards a compulsory of everybody gets charged for breaking the 20mph limit.
“But what I would expect is if we have an individual who is perhaps carrying a hefty number of points for speeding, then we will send them to the courts who might take their licence off them as opposed to giving them a warning as clearly they have been charged three times previously.”
CI Todd said he was speaking with the local area commanders in all three Tayside authorities around their approach to the 20mph limits.
He said they were also linking back with councils about what measures were put in place around introducing a 20mph limit.
He said: “Before we introduce a 20mph limit there needs to be adherence to the Scottish Government guidelines of what that actually means.
“It’s not just a lowering of the 40 or 30mph limit and I’m not convinced all of my staff and all of the community recognise what follows these introductions.
“But our colleagues in road policing clearly are. They are very particular around their capability.
“And in regards to your own area, it is a priority route for them and they are up there all the time.”