EFFORTS to make Bradford’s roads safer will not work unless dangerous driving is better enforced, a Councillor has claimed.

Bradford Council’s Bradford East Area Committee approved a string of traffic orders and casualty reduction schemes at a meeting last week.

During the debate one councillor questioned how effective the measures will be, pointing out that he saw over a dozen cars parked illegally on a drive down Leeds Road.

The Council’s different area committees have been meeting in recent weeks to approve a number of road safety measures, such as traffic islands, no waiting restrictions and traffic calming measures, in their area.

Bradford East was allocated £110,000.

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But during the discussion Councillor Riaz Ahmed (Lib Dem, Bradford Moor), claimed that many of these measures would be ignored by bad drivers.

He said: “We put lines down on roads, double yellows, single yellows, but do they work?

“I came down Leeds Road today and saw nine cars parked on the pavement, and four cars parked in front of a shop on double yellow lines.

“It is just bad driving - we can put all these measures in place, but we won’t resolve issues like this unless they can be monitored and enforced.

“The problem is that we are not monitoring this, we need to work on enforcement more than anything else.”

Councillor Taj Salam (Lab, Little Horton) said: “The young drivers in high performance cars can just fly over things. We really need any traffic calming measures to be raised.”

Traffic measures are prioritised in areas with high accident rates, but Committee Chair Councillor Rachel Sunderland (Lib Dem, Bolton and Undercliffe), pointed out that accidents were often down to poor driving, not dangerous roads. She said: “A lot of the people involved in crashes are driving too fast, they are drunk or they are high. There might physically be nothing wrong with the highway.”

Andrew Smith Principle Highways Engineer said all potential projects were looked at, and said traffic calming schemes could control speeding “to some extent.”

One project the committee approved was for a series of traffic management measures on Dudley Hill Road, which will cost around £43,000.

The committee was told there has been 12 road accidents in that are in the past five years.

A traffic island and build out will be constructed on Sticker Lane near the junction with Broad Lane, which will cost £15,000. Five crashes have been recorded there in the past five years.

There will also be traffic calming measures installed on Halcyon Way, Canterbury, costing £12,000.

And a traffic island will be installed on Harrogate Road at its junction with Navigation Drive, costing £5,000.

Just over £13,000 will be spent on traffic orders across the constituency, including new double yellow lines at the junction of Plumpton Close and Kings Road and on Tenterfields, opposite Cavalier Drive.