Recently our dog was hit by a car when she was forced to step out onto the road from the narrow pavement on Temple Street.

Usually in a situation like that you look for someone immediately to blame.

In this instance it was difficult to lay any blame with anyone at the scene, including the driver.

However, the incident again has led us to discuss with other residents of Temple Street the dangers of that road.

Cars come off the bend past the playing field at quite a speed. There are no signs at all to warn them that it is a residential road, that children may be around, no speed limit and certainly no signs relating to speed.

We have a barely visible zebra crossing that was set by some genius next to a busy side road. The pavements are incredibly narrow and fit only one person at a time. And now we are expected to leave our bins out on those pavements for people and children to manoeuvre around without, as our dog was, being hit by a car that has had no warning otherwise.

Cars stop outside the Spar even when there is a car park behind it and a free one 100 yards down, and this creates further chaos.

Can people really not walk 100 yards to shop there? You also have to question how a partially sighted person might cross that road at any point other than all the way down at the pelican crossing by the Radway cinema.

It is no different at Primley Road, and we have had 10 years of our kids going to Sidmouth College and negotiating the complete lack of a safe path, or crossings, for them to follow to get them safely to and from school.

We are angry and upset, but maybe whoever is responsible could visit Temple Street and Primley Road before it is a child that gets hit rather than our dog.

Surely as a community we care about safety first, or do we just continue thinking it must be someone else’s problem until it is too late?

Or maybe that cars, especially if multiply owned and large, are more important than people within a small town?

I have tried for many years to find a traffic management plan or policy at Sidmouth Town Council, but without success.

Just, please, do your job.

Name and address supplied