VIGILANT residents in a rural spot near Marlow have taken matters into their own hands after becoming fed up with speeding motorists making their lives a misery.

Sheila Muller, who lives on Frieth Road, decided to start her own speed awareness campaign to combat reckless drivers on residential sections of the route.

Along with her husband Kenneth, a member of Great Marlow Parish Council, she set about creating her own Community Speedwatch Scheme to tackle the problem head on, with the project already seeing results.

She said: "Every day numerous horse riders, cyclists, walkers and children are increasingly at risk from passing motor vehicles.

"Although there is a 30mph speed limit in force on the residential stretches of the Frieth Road some motorists blatantly ignore the prevailing official speed signs and race along these stretches at alarming speeds."

With help from council colleagues, Mr and Mrs Muller took to the streets and made their presence felt with high visibility jackets and a speed monitoring gun.

They regularly monitor traffic speeds, which they feed back to police for them to arrange their own enforcement checks.

And Mr Muller says the widespread problem stems from drivers not putting on the brakes once they come out of rural areas and into restricted residential zones.

He said: "Many villages and small towns have a problem with vehicles that fail to reduce speed. On country routes like ours, a 50mph zone may regularly become a 30mph zone, as it passes through small communities.

"Yet many drivers don't reduce their speed until they are well past the speed limit sign. And many only slow down by a small amount - not enough to be within the speed limit.

"They may simply be oblivious that they are in a residential area and need to slow down."

Great Marlow's Speedwatch scheme does not yet result in speeding motorists automatically being sent letters of warning, as with similar police-partnered initiatives in areas such as Lane End and Princes Risborough.

However, the risks of ignoring the amateurs' speed gun can result in a prosecution, with the Road Police Unit in Amersham supporting the initiative and setting up their own operation on Frieth Road last month.

Following the principle of education rather than penalty, they stopped all cars exceeding the speed limit and spoke to the drivers about their responsibilities.

However, those exceeding 39mph they prosecuted, and during a one-and-a-half hour session officers monitored around 80 vehicles, stopped 20 motorists and prosecuted six.

And Great Marlow council, which covers the area north-west of the town centre, is encouraging anyone else in the parish to come forward and help identify speeding hotspots.

Visit www.greatmarlowpc.co.uk/contact or email greatmarlowpc@btinternet.com