Learners annoy residents in South Woodford!
on July 12th, 2010 at 11:22 pmMuch as they try to be tolerant, the residents of the Firs Estate have had enough of learner drivers stuttering, stalling and kangaroo hopping around their roads. The quiet grid of leafy streets and family homes has been identified as the most popular gathering place in Britain for trainee motorists. Now, locals have had enough and have set up a campaign group to threaten legal action against the local authority to tell the driving schools to go elsewhere. The estate in South Woodford, east London, received hundreds of learner drivers in one day. A recent survey counted 409 in a 12 hour period. The problem started nine years ago when the town became a test centre and has gradually got worse, with more than 100 accidents recorded since 2001. BSM, Kims, Bill Plant, Rudi’s and Eurodrive are just a few of the driving schools clogging up the streets. Learners line behind each other to practise reverse parking, parallel parking and three point turns, with often calamitous results. Parked cars, garden walls, lampposts and trees have all fallen foul of the inexperienced motorists at the wheel. Eddie Blackwell, leader of the campaign group, said several local people had suffered minor injuries while one man was knocked out after a learner driver hit him. More


