Residents in the area affected by the re-routed traffic have reportedly said that many motorists are driving at speed along the pavements.
Guernsey Police said they’ve received “a number of reports of vehicles exceeding the 20mph speed limit currently in place on the route diverting vehicles around the airport”.
This has been caused by the closure of Le Bourg, which means motorists are being diverted away from the main route to the airport when heading from town/St Martins. Instead they must drive behind the airport towards La Villiaze and out before turning back towards the airport. Traffic is also travelling in the other direction which has meant the roads being used for the diversion have “a lot more cars on it than usual, and many buses and heavy goods vehicles,” said Guernsey Police.
The road is limited to 20mph during the diversion but some motorists have reportedly not been sticking to it – while a significant number have also reportedly been seen driving on pavements “in a dangerous manner”.
This led to the warning, issued by Bailiwick Law Enforcement earlier this week.
To see for ourselves what is happening, Express took a walk in the roads and lanes being used by diverted traffic this morning.
At around 09:30 the ‘rush hour’ traffic will have passed but there was still occasionally heavy traffic in some places which are presumably much quieter normally.
These are rural roads in Guernsey’s ‘country parishes’ but there were many industrial vehicles using them – either heading to/from the work at the airport or other jobs.
The vast majority of vehicles we saw did not drive on the pavement. Those that did, did seem to have to do so because of a lack of space on the roads.
The drivers we saw mount the pavement did, in most cases, slow right down – some stopped or waited for us to pass before mounting the kerb.
A bus was seen to mount the pavement stop and return to the road, while an industrial truck only mounted the pavement when we moved into a driveway to give them room on the pavement. The driver kept the vehicles wheels on the pavement for barely two seconds as another vehicle passed on the other side of the road.
Official advice from Guernsey Police and Traffic and Highways Services has been mixed in the past – with Law Enforcement this week telling motorists to “slow to a crawl” while driving on pavements, and previous messaging being firm that if you must mount the pavement you should only do so to allow another vehicle to pass and you should not drive on the pavement while doing so.
Previous messaging has also included warnings that people will be prosecuted for driving on pavements.
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