Does Constable Walton have any figures as to the number of accidents that have occurred and resulting injuries caused at this junction. Surely police time would be better spent eradicating the anti social behaviour that blights the streets of Shrewsbury each and every day, rather than targeting sitting ducks/motorists?

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I’m glad the police don’t listen to people who say they should pick and choose which crimes to police. They should police every type of crime. Nobody is suggesting this is as serious as other crimes. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t act on it.

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If I can assist Constable Walton while he is thinking, if you put strategic bollards at the junction you could make it impossible for drivers to make the manouvre, if you honestly think it is that dangerous, rather than shivering in the cold clutching your little notebook with eager anticipation at the thought of enforcing a £30 toll on drivers which will still leave you with the same little problem. Its nice to know our wellbeing is in such caring grabbing hands!

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about time something was done about this junction!

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I’m surprised the police are taking any action at all unless it’s a fractional excess of a speed limit producing funds. Ludicrously poor driving and total disregard for other road users seems to be of no concern to the Service at all !.

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So you cant cycle on Pride Hill, fair enough.But I feel more in danger of lorries,vans and particularly council road sweepers who treat pedestrians with comtempt on pride Hill.The council seem to favour busy Saturdays to fly up and down the pedestrian area,perhaps Constable Walton should be looking at them.

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Surely this is a job for enforcement cameras,24/7 survayelance cameras.

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After reading the article, it seems to me that it is the rule against turning left which is wrong.

Bad rules are rarely obeyed.

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I must hold my hands up and admit to having done this a number of times. It is really more like a staggered crossroads and I have always waited until thereis nothing in sight! In future I will not do it though!

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is it ok to break the law as long as you only do it a little bit..

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The problem with all of this is that:

Things like ignoring a short section of “one way”, ignoring road signs (and of course exceeding the speed limit – although I didn’t think the article was about speeding, ref big matty #13) are:

Quite simply illegal, and so … it’s nice and easy for the police and others to overstate a simple manouvre taken over a very short distance as “dangerous” and putting safety of others at risk when really .. is it anything of the sort??

Now – the point is this – NO ONE can argue that it’s illegal, and so we shouldn’t do it,
and so ….. it’s EVER SO easy for the police to take the “holier than thou” approach as they seem to be doing.

BUT – Surely there are FAR MORE serious issues to sort out – ??

If you can’t drive a car safely in a crowded busy town centre EVEN allowing for the odd “slightly iffy” maneouvre – then you shouldn’t be driving at all!!

Good grief !!We aren’t talking about boy racers going down Pride hill at 50 Mph scattering pedestrians as they go – we are talking about a little “twist” (albeit illegal) to take a short cut.

Something that we’ve all been doing one way or another for generations ! I DO think the police need to put this in perspective!!

Again – There must be FAR more SERIOUS crimse to solve!!

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i reckon we should sack the police so me and me brother can get our private security company to run the town instead, we could get old dicky to help us.

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I’m in agreement with Huw Peach here. The no entry signs should be moved back a few yards so that the manoeuvre becomes legal. By doing that, and shortening journeys, more fossil fuel would be saved because cars would not have top travel so far to reach their destination.

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Now, hang on.

Going UP Fish Street is not illegal, and – it could be argued – is an “access” to Market Place.

By heading to Market Place from Fish Street is NOT a “left turn”; it is merely a slightly oblique angle from the straight ahead. A slightly staggered crossroads, I would suggest, where turning LEFT (i.e. turning your steering wheel 180 degrees or more) is prohibited. And as another has alluded to on here, if there is no traffic approaching from the left (and god knows visibility is good enough), then what harm does it do to go straight on from the Fish Street exit?

Seems as if many people commenting on this “story” are wannabe communists happy in blind compliance to every single directive issued by the powers that be, no matter how petty and easily enforced these directives may be.

The sooner Winky McBroon and his spear carriers are booted out of office, the sooner we’ll see less of useless petty “offences” like that in the “story” above being monitored and enforced.

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National Newspapers have publishid articles stating that the law is to be changed allowing cyclists to ignore one way restrictions on roads.
A few years ago I saw a car driver park his car across the lower end of the Pride Hill pedestrian area in the road. As he left his car a bus driver stopped and told him to move it as he needed all the road to turn the corner. The car driver showed the bus driver his police warrant card. The bus driver told him he could not give a fig who he was, move your car or I will knock it out of the way with my bus. With people applauding the bus driver the policeman moved his car and drove off.

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Seriously, the police just can’t win with some of this lot.
And before anybody asks, no, I am not a police officer and never have been but I do know people in the service and I also believe I have respect for those enforcing the law in this country.
The vast majority of police officers work incredibly hard, there simply isn’t enough of them to deal effectively with everything.
I have no doubt that the issue in the article has been complained about any number of times, with local residents and shop keepers asking why the police were doing nothing to deal with it.
Just because an officer has taken on himself to stop people driving the wrong way up a one way street (which, however you try and justify it, is illegal, end of story), it doesn’t mean he isn’t dealing with dozens of other jobs and issues too.
Those who feel they can knock the police at every turn for every little thing they do might want to give it a go themselves, maybe sign on as a special constable and see first hand what they have to deal with, day in, day out. Maybe then they won’t be so quick to criticise.

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Hi Vinnie (#31)

Actually – A story line “Police driving around looking for very dangerous drivers” I suggest WOULD make a great news story!!

Fact is – That’s PRECISLEY what the “police” – and I mean proper “Police car drivers” with “True Demonstrable driving skills SHOULD be doing!!

Read all the threads about speed cameras etc – see how many times the comment is made:

“we should have proper police patrols looking out for bad examples of driving – and not relying on cameras that won’t detect it”.

I would say that we as motorists …are tired of all being reduced to the lowest common denominator – being herded around like sheep – being made to adhere to pointless road systems, signals, signs, low pseed limits etc etc … on the misguided assumption that none of us “drivers” are capable of driving to any sort of standard!

Well .. I’m afraid to say that actually a lot of us I’ll wager are as skilled and as competent as the “highly” trained police drivers out there.

Good driving skills aren’t just the unique possession of the “professional drivers” !

And …

I don’t subscribe to the view either, as stated earlier that if you don’t stop small crimes (disgruntled 29)like riding a bike without lights – that we will all progress to hardened criminals!

Honestly!!

if that were true the whole country would be one big criminal playground!!

How many of you have ridden a bike without lights, on the footpath, or “borrowed things” from work etc etc (such as paper, pens, etc)
The list goes on. Even our MP’s have been fiddling expenses !!!!

No one is perfect – including the police – and them banging on about “zero” tolerance” and someone making a small illegal manouvre at low speed with good visiblility etc being likely to kill someone etc is in my humble opinion just plain over-reacting -and does their image no good at all.

As I said – There are FAR more serious crimes to be detected and solved – I’m sure !

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Just a quick comment here, is it not possible to reverse the flow around the Parade this argument wouldn’t even occur then.

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Eric said:

“if that were true the whole country would be one big criminal playground!!”

And, since 1997, that is exactly how “New Labour” would class this country as. More laws, more rules, more surveillance, guilty until proven innocent. Something like 30,000 new laws passed. GB now home to the highest number of CCTV cameras in the developed world. “Do what I say, not as I do” is the current govt’s mantra. And heaven forbid if you work hard for a decent wage, and have a nice house, with a nice view, and a nice car as their envy taxes will charge you for it.

A socialist government, and the minions they employ, intrinsically hate the fact that people can ACTUALLY think for themselves.

Which – in this case – is why the sad, uniformed, womble in the headline story thinks drivers driving straight-on at a crossroads should be punished if there is a sign directing traffic “right only”.

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Comment #34 hits the nail on the head. When you moan that the police are wasting time on trivial matters, it’s because there are so many cretins out there who are unwilling to obey the laws of the road. Stop committing minor offences and you’ll free up the police to deal with the bigger issues.

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Hear hear Barrington (Comment 41).

More people are killed on the roads each year than in burglaries and thefts anyway, so why is it wrong to target motorists?

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Guilty, I too am guilty.

Describing the junction as a staggered crossroad is fair but anything other than driving straight ahead might suggest having to momentarliy head in the wrong direction up the one way street.

I’m just splitting hairs. It’s a waste of police time. Install a camera – £30 a ticket, 10 a day, 365 days p.a. is a decent return. There is probably an unemployed bod who would happily stand on the corner and take photo’s all day for £100K a year. Where do I sign up?

Winja – if you are turning left or right and turning 180 degrees or more, might be time to hang up your car keys. Or go back to school.

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