CARS are entering ditches on a narrow east Donegal road.
A petition for action on the L-23742 Back Lone Road in St Johnston has garnered close to 500 signatures from concerned residents.
Local farmers have been forced to recover cars from the ditches, which have open drains.
Concerns have been raised that the road has nowhere suitable to pull over to allow two-way traffic, forcing vehicles to reverse hundreds of metres back.
Alice Lynch, owner of Maggies Tavern at Carrickmore, is affected by the road’s proximity to her business.
She has collected the physical signatures herself, which are almost all from local people affected by the issue.
Alice spoke to the Donegal News about the dangers on the road, which is a link road that people in the locality use to get to Letterkenny.
“There’s no place for cars to pull in,” she said.
“It means that if you’re on the road, you have to reverse about 300 metres to let the other person pass.
“When you are reversing, a lot of cars have been falling in [to the ditches] and the local farmers have to pull them out.”
Alice explained that the problem is impacting the farming community in St Johnston.
“For the farmers to get into their fields they have to use the big tractors, and therefore that impedes ordinary cars,” she said.
“It’s a link road, it’s a county council owned road and there’s lorries as well, so there’s a lot of traffic on it.”
The issue has been ongoing for some time and apart from tarring, Alice has not seen improvements on the road.
She also highlighted visibility concerns due to overgrown hedges along the road.
“If there were laybys we would be happy enough,” Alice said.
“It’s very frustrating. We’ve got about 500 signatures of people complaining, all the locals around.
“It’s a whole community uproar and it’s a whole community issue. People are coming to me saying ‘did you hear any word back’, but nothing has been done positively yet, so we’re hoping again that the council will be able to look into it again.
“It’s not a big ask, but at the same time, it’s a necessity. It will save other accidents from happening.”
Alice has been shown support by local councillors and TDs, but the main thing that locals want to see is action.
She also expressed concern that the open drains are “not environmentally friendly”.
Alice is now hoping to bring the petition to the council.
“It’s just to get a layby or two and to have the engineer look at it and just to make it a bit more accessible,” she said.
Donegal County Council was contacted for comment, however, they did not respond by the time this publication went to print.