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Fri, 14 May 2021
A former senior police officer on the Isle of Man believes wider debate is needed about a potential road closure on Marine Drive.
The Department of Infrastructure is considering shutting off the route to traffic, claiming it would support the government’s active travel plan.
However, ex-head of the Roads Policing Unit Derek Flint believes that may be a smokescreen for the real matter of road safety.
He says reckless driving on Marine Drive costs hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, although the issues aren’t solely down to young drivers.
“If you remember back to April 2020, there was a very sad fatality of an 80-year-old chap that died after his car left the road on Marine Drive, so I think that’s probably a bit of a misnomer in this respect [to suggestyoung drivers are the sole cause of road traffic collisions]” said retired Inspector Flint.
A number of incidents have made the headlines in recent years, when cars have left the road on Marine Drive and the emergency services have been called out.
More than 600 responses are believed to have been submitted as part of the consultation, which suggested permanently closing the road to motor vehicles and encourage more cyclists and pedestrians to use the area.
But Mr Flint has suggested the DOI has been ‘disingenuous’ with its reasoning.
He said: “I think that was a little bit disingenuous in terms of the way the consultation was marketed, because why would it be anything else other than a road safety debate?
“The question they should be asking is ‘how can we actually reduce the likelihood of casualties up there’ rather than restricting [the road] to a particular group of users.
“The active travel thing I think is a little bit of a red herring.”
Former Inspector Derek Flint spoke to Local Democracy Reporter Chris Cave:
Derek Flint IV
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