Road closures in the Moor Row area: - don't put lives at risk by ignoring signs

There are currently road closures in the Moor Row area which are there for a good reason while important work is done. It is not currently possible to cut through from the A595 north of Bigrigg through Moor Row and Padstow to the B5295 at Keekle.

I am sorry to learn from concerned local residents that some drivers are ignoring the signs - in some cases moving them out of the way - and driving through the closed areas, sometimes at unsafe speeds.

This action puts the lives of the individuals concerned and other innocent road users at risk.

There are all sorts of reasons why ignoring signs that tell you a road is closed is a really bad idea and moving signs which say that a road is closed is incredibly irresponsible.

It is often suggested that people can become a different individual when they get behind the wheel of a car and this is an example.

At the turn of the millennium there was some serious flooding in the council ward I then represented, and I remember hearing about it, going to have a look, finding a road (House Lane, Sandridge, between Sandridge Village and the Jersey Farm estate) blocked by water and getting on my mobile phone to the relevant council department to check what the score was with fixing it.

While I was on the phone the driver of a large MPV, who had ignored the "road closed" signs and promptly got her vehicle trapped in the flood waters came up and complained at me for not trying to push her car out of the flood (which in my judgement at the time it would have been physically impossible for one or even two people to do - and the car would not have started again until a garage had fixed it anyway). I asked why she'd driven past the "road closed" signs and she replied that she needed to get to work!

This was a normally responsible individual who was Vice-Chair of the governors on a local school governing body and who I would have expected to have more sense. She certainly learned the lesson not to ignore "road closed" signs the hard way.

If anyone reading this has been ignoring the "road closed" signs in Dalzell Street, then for your own safety and those of others, please, please don't. Find another way to get where you need to be.