‘Death drivers’ must be stopped warns Derry Colr.

Colr. Heaney said action needed to be taken before a fatality occurred.

His comments followed an incident last Thursday when a car smashed into a garden of a local family at Derrymore.

A woman who lives at the address told the Journal last week of the incident could have resulted in someone being killed.

Colr. Heaney said the persistent problem in the vicinity has been escalating recently.

“There has been a noticeable increase in death driving in the Springtown Road area in recent weeks,” he said. “In the latest incident earlier this week a young family with a toddler escaped death or injury when a stolen car crashed into their house at Derrymore Park in the early hours of the morning.

“I have requested the Department for Infrastructure to assess what additional road safety measures can be installed in the area which would make it harder for the death drivers to operate.

“I have also spoken to the police and other agencies to ask them to proactively clamp down on these death drivers in the coming weeks.”

An online petition has been started by Colr. Heaney and Foyle MLA Padraig Delargy calling on the Minister for Infrastructure and Roads Service in Derry to review the existing safety measures on the Springtown Road and the PSNI to increase their presence and to ‘proactively clamp down on those death drivers seen speeding in the Springtown Road area’. The petition is available at www.change.org/p/department-for-infrastructure-stop-death-drivers-along-the-springtown-roadDetectives meanwhile are appealing to anyone who was in the Derrymore area at around 5am last Thursday or who may have captured dash cam footage to make contact quoting ref. no. 159 06/01/22.