Campaign to cut biker accidents

Campaign to cut biker accidents
Motorcyclists from the north-east of England are being targeted by a safety campaign being run by police in the Scottish Borders.
In the last four years, 172 bikers were involved in accidents in the Borders. On one stretch of the road, 15 of the 16 hurt were from the North East.

Lothian and Borders Police are urging people to ride responsibly.

Over the summer, marked and unmarked police cars will be operating across the area.

Tackle perception

Insp Alan Baird from Lothian and Borders Police said: “We have noticed in some of the analysis work we have done that there are quite a number coming from the north-east of England.

“And that’s we are really keen to promote our road safety message to the area.”

He said one of the roads being looked at is the B6357, which runs towards Bonchester Bridge and up to the A68, which is known locally as the Kielder route by some motorcyclists.

He said: “What we discovered is on that particular stretch of road in the past three years we have had 16 motorcyclists either killed or seriously injured, 15 have come from the north-east of England and one from Glasgow.”

Insp Baird said they wanted to tackle the perception that there was not much traffic policing in the area and they would be targeting routes which were advertised as good for motorcyclists.