WATCH: Resident plagued by racers pleads for speeding sense

Wednesday 20 January 2021

A St. Martin resident has called for a crackdown on night-time racers, after being plagued by continuous noise from speeding drivers outside his house, who he recently caught on camera.

Simon Harman moved to Rue De La Genestiere just off of Grande Route de la Faldouet in St. Martin with his wife in late November - but the welcome was not the one they had expected or hoped for.

Since moving, the pair have suffered from frequent noise disturbance from fast drivers going at "worrying" speeds along the 40mph lane outside their home.

"What they tend to do is go flying along the road – you can hear it from the kitchen window...These guys just have got no consideration for anybody else - the noise sometimes wakes us up at night."

On the frequency of the drives, he said that “these are by no means isolated incidents and tend to occur most evenings.”

“It happens at random times of the day – last Sunday it was at 18:30, and on the Saturday before about 11:30.” 

WATCH: Two incidents were caught on Simon's home security camera - the first on 9 January, the second on 17 January.

As well as being noisy enough to wake the couple up at night and be heard from their kitchen, at around 30 foot away from the main road, he highlighted the safety concerns for both drivers and pedestrians.

One point that stood out for him was that the drivers must be turning off of the main road at high speeds straight down into the much tighter lanes, filled with potential hazards like hard-to-see side roads, and older houses and structures. 

“The sort of speeds that are going on here, they’re not at all appropriate,” he said, pointing out that “there’s no way you can get up to even 30mph [safely] because you’ve got all sorts of junctions and driveways around the area.”

He also added they had a barn just behind their house, expressing concerns for the farmyard animals like horses and cows who might accidentally end up on the road or roam around the area.

Pictured: St Martin resident Simon Harman expressed his concerns that a serious accident could happen if the speed of driving outside his house continued.

On what he would like to see done, Simon said he would like to see the area have “some sort of traffic calming or enforcement from the Police and the Honorary Police just to get the message out that this isn’t acceptable.”

His plea for more action came after dozens of islanders complained of being awoken by racers speeding around the island in the early of this weekend.

St. Ouen Chef de Police, Centenier Richard Honeycombe, told Express that the problem with 'boy racers' had been ongoing for two years, with parish officers frequently logging high speeds of up to 143mph.

In response to a report of three ‘racers’ at St. Catherine over this weekend, Chef de Police of St Martin, Gordon Jones, said of the “ludicrous” speeds that the parish honoraries had spoken to their new community police officer, Tamara De Carteret, and “will put some things in place to try and intercept and stop them sooner rather than later.”

Pictured: Honorary Officers told Express yesterday that 'boy racers' had been an ongoing problem throughout the island, but that work was being done to crack down on them.

The issue of road safety is currently a hot topic on the island, with a petition for a review of the road safety law reaching over 3,300 signatures. 

The petition was set up by the parents of a boy who was knocked off his bike and left with life changing injuries, who feel injustice has been done in not having the driver prosecuted due to a perceived 'loophole' in the law.