‘Donut’ drivers are a ‘nightmare’

Bernard Sparkes (42) and his wife Patricia and eight of their children live in the Drones Road area of the village.

They say the noise made by screeching tyres, including late at night, is maddening, and is creating problems for all his household but especially for two grown-up members of the family who are autistic.

Bernard said: “We are living a nightmare, by being woken at night by idiotic drivers performing doughnuts in the middle of the road junction and speeding round and round the house.

“The PSNI are doing their best to combat these dangerous drivers. The harassment is not limited to noise and reckless driving, the family have had stones thrown at the windows and people shouting abuse outside the house.

“One of these days someone will end up crashing through our fence.

“This has been ongoing for some time at all hours of the day and night at the junction of Drones Road and Gracehill Road and in the wee triangle of roads here including the Church Road,

“Police are doing all they can to stop this but somebody is going to end up dead because of an accident either on the road or if a car hits my house.

“Maybe if part of Church Road was blocked off to make it a cul-de-sac it would stop people racing round.

“There are maybe about five cars doing this all the time and one occasion a car spun round and round doing ‘donuts’ for about ten minutes and although it is really annoying for my family it is particularly disruptive for the members of the household with autism as they do not like their routine disturbed,” said Mr Sparkes.