Emergency services abused at Grantham scenes of accidents

Lincolnshire Police say…

Over the last few weeks Grantham Officers have attended numerous road traffic incidents, from minor collisions to serious accidents where people have been badly injured and even sadly died.

The main priority of Paramedics, Fire crews and Police who attend these incidents is to make sure the scene is secure and that the people working with in it, as well as the casualties are safe from further injury by vehicles driving on to the scene.

When accidents like these happen it takes a while for road closures to be put in place.

The officers and highways staff manning these road closures priority is keeping the scene secure and the traffic flowing so as not to cause another accident.

Over the last few weeks we have seen an increase of dangerous behavior from motorists such as trying to drive around the road closure on the pavement, stopping and reversing on roundabouts, ignoring officers direction to stop, trying to drive through scenes, driving down the wrong side of the road and hurling abuse at officers and Highways staff for closing the road.

Every time this is done it puts not only the officer, ambulance, fire and rescue and highways staff at the scene at risk, but also the casualties and other motorists with in the area.

We do not close roads for fun, they are closed out of necessity for as short space of time as possible even if this is several hours. If you come to a road closure and you are unsure which way to go, we recommend you carry on driving until you get to a location where you can safely park up and consult a map.

Stopping on a roundabout or a clearway is not a safe location and creates another hazard.

We also ask drivers to be mindful of their surroundings, slowing down to a crawl so you can get a good look as to what is going on is not acceptable and can again create another hazard.

While we appreciate road closures are disruptive to journeys, as we have said they are done only out of necessity.