Children issue a warning to motorists over speeding

Almost 800 people have signed three separate petitions calling for improved protection for pedestrians, including those travelling to and from two schools.

They are being backed by town and parish councils and a road safety charity and will present their petitions to councillors at an East Riding Council scrutiny committee meeting tomorrow.

Petitioners representing Burlington Junior School, Burlington Infants’ School, and Burlington Pre-school, in Marton Road, Bridlington, want a 20mph, speed humps and improved visibility around a zebra crossing, while villagers in Little Weighton also want speed humps and the limit cut to 20mph.

The Little Weighton petition includes the signatures of 55 children and nine members of staff at Little Weighton Rowley Church of England Primary School.

The children have also written a letter outlining their concerns.

It said: “We are writing because we would like cars to slow down outside of our school.

“Lots of cars speed past our school, they ignore the signs at the beginning of the village and if they are trying to slow down it is often too late and they have already zoomed past our school.

“We are worried about children getting hurt. Some children cross the roads themselves and little children might run across on their own.

“If someone got hurt and we knew them well we would be very sad. We would be annoyed with the driver. We don’t want to wait until someone gets run over in our village.”

Dale ward councillor Rita Hudson, who said she would be attending the meeting, said there had long been a problem with drivers failing to slow down once they had entered the village.

She said: “There’s always been a problem with that and perhaps this needs to be addressed again and looked at. More and more people have cars now and more and more housing has gone up so there are more people travelling from other villages. It might need looking at again and I fully back that.”

Residents in the village of Keyingham are calling for its pedestrian crossing to be upgraded to a pelican crossing.

Although the numbers of people being killed or seriously injured on the region’s roads is falling, statistics show speed is one of the main causes of fatal and serious collisions.

Pupils at two Hull primary schools recently joined police to aim speed guns at drivers suspected of speeding and issue them with warning tickets they had designed themselves.