Residents in both Caithness and Sutherland have relayed their concerns following a cluster of driving offences across the North Coast 500 route.
As coronavirus restrictions ease across the UK, people desperate for their summer holidays have flocked to enjoy staycations as confusion still looms over foreign travel.
It means popular tourist destinations such as the “ultimate road trip” NC500 have seen a barrage of visitors.
However. with an increasing amount of traffic on the “windy and narrow single track roads”, and with police stopping more than 160 drivers along the route during their three-day operation, locals have become alarmed.
Rob Jobson, who lives along the route in Caithness says she is “worried for her life” amid the drivers who are “thoughtless and careless with no consideration to property owners or the environment”.
She said: “We had to travel to Thurso and these motorbikes just came flying round the bend, out across the line and coming in our direction.
“We had to swerve out onto the side of the road. They were speeding, literally flying, and the noise was like a jet plane.
‘I was just waiting for the crash’
“It was just a race track as far as they were concerned. I have been worried sick ever since.
“I was just waiting for the crash, it was just seconds away. I find every reason to get multiple things done on one trip now. Most of it is just carelessness and stupidity.
“You’re worried for your life because when there is a crash, it’s going to be an awful one.
“Before you get to May there is a layby and more often than not there is two or three campervans parked there for the night. [I saw] one lot in the process of emptying their toilet waste, albeit with chemicals, onto the road in the layby.
“It is poison to the wildlife but it is an absolutely insane thing to do and inappropriate. I am sick to the pit of my stomach”.
Post lockdown, a survey revealed that more more than 57% of people planned to reschedule their trip to the Nc500 this year, with a further 18% aiming to visit in 2022 or later.
More than a third of visitors planned to stay exclusively in hotels during their time on the route, an increase of 8% compared to the June 2020 survey.
However Mrs Jobson says tourism isn’t enough.
‘It is a pure and simple race track’
She said: “When they are going 100 miles an hour they are not spending it here, it is pure and simple a race track for most of them.
“They stock up at the big supermarkets down south – you could count on one hand the amount of people who ask where they can get a meal or where is best to get things.
“Maybe they buy fuel, but even then I think they go to the big supermarkets. The spend is not in good proportion per person of those on the route”.
Margaret Meek, a resident in Kinlochbervie agrees, saying that “the benefits are outweighed massively by the negatives”.
The 69-year-old – who is asking for a dashcam for her upcoming birthday – said: “Lots of people hire high performance cars and are travelling really fast, there was someone caught doing 145 mph recently very close to where I live.
“The Nc500 must stop promoting it as the ‘ultimate road trip’ because that just encourages this kind of behavior. It’s horrible, it must stop. It doesn’t help communities.”
Trish Banger-Jones, who lives in South Assynt on the West Coast, says she no longer gets in her car during the day to avoid the dangerous traffic.
‘Sheer frustration caused by campervans that go at 20 miles an hour’
The now retired careers civil-servant says she is lucky she has no job to get to, as not only are people driving too fast, but campervans and motorhomes driving at 20 miles an hour are causing “sheer frustration”.
She said: “There might be people in these queues who are community nurses or doctors.
“The stunning scenery, the inexperience, ineptitude, selfishness – I don’t think it is a very simple problem to solve.
“I think it’s really difficult to wholly blame the NC500 because it is happening all over – the Lake District, the south coast, Dorset, Snowden – you name it.
“For the first time in my driving career I managed two full emergency stops. My shopping from Tesco went everywhere as well as the dogs.
“I was joining the main road to Ullapool and was driving behind a campervan who put his brakes on very suddenly. The car in front of him had decided to stop and pull onto the other carriageway to go into a layby”.
It means the 62-year-old has started making the four-hour round trip to Inverness for her weekly shop as early as 5am to avoid those she believes are “unused to single track roads”.
‘I feel like an alien in my own landscape’
Irene Bews, who fronts Adventura Scotland, says she feels “tarred by the same brush” as she relies on the use of a campervan to aid Duke of Edinburgh expeditions.
She said: “I just feel like an alien in my own landscape almost. A lot of them say when they hired their motorhome, they weren’t told what to do with it. They empty their toilets in lochs and on the beach.
“It does put you off going into the NC500 area, which is on your own doorstep, because you know you’re going to encounter all these folk.
“We as locals know what the roads are like but they don’t quite realise how windy and narrow they are. If you have got folk trying to race round it is an absolute nightmare.
“They are going at speeds on roads that are not designed for it. It has been going on for quite a while but it has definitely been worse during the Covid times because as soon as lockdown eased everyone has gone mad.
“There was a herd of Highland cattle wandering about the road just past Applecross, everybody just pulled into laybys and got out and were taking photos and selfies with the Highland cows.
“We were trying to let people past on to road but they were all parked on the passing places. This is a main road”.
The keen cyclist also refuses to bike on the route anymore, saying: “I would be terrified because people just don’t know how to drive.
“We are out in this the whole time and it has definitely gotten worse, and the volume of traffic is phenomenal and our roads are not good enough. The road surfaces are awful because there are so many people pounding them”.
The organisers of the NC500 route have been contacted for comment.