“Whenever this type of accident happens there is a call for action by a party not involved in the accident. The nanny state mentality. The simple fact is that Rock park is exactly that - a park and in a park you expect there to be kids running around, cycling etc. Because there is a road close to the areas where kids may be, the drivers need to be more aware than normal when driving through and kids need to be taught to be extra careful. Putting speed limits in place wont work because the majority of drivers take no notice of them.
Forget all the fancy cures, make it a simple one. Any driver travelling at a speed that may be considered dangerous in the circumstances or in the place they are driving gets a ticket. Any cyclist riding without due caution, the same treatment.
I didn't see the accident described so cannot make any comment other than the description given does not show either party as being at fault.
Personally I fail to see the wisdom of having a road running by a park like this. The park and ride could use a different route and maybe a cycle/pedestrian lane on one side. There is a route through the car park at the far end so maybe a one way system. With the skate park there is going to be more traffic so common sense tells me that the traffic needs to go very slow. What speed that should be is up to the drivers - they must take into account where they are and drive accordingly. If a driver is not capable of doing that they should not have a license.
We cannot expect councils or authorities to be responsible for our failings. The responsibility for the safety of anyone using the park is the person using it and no one else's”

“I am a skater at rock park and i also have to kids that skate there to, i agree that we need to have some kind of traffic calming put in place. I have been there most of the week an have seen car's driving up an down at speed's of which they would not be able to stop if some one was to jump out in front of them. There is no one really to blame for what happened, you can blame the kid, you can blame the driver, but with the new skate park there and the extra kids around the council really need to think about some sort of road calming.e.g. speed hump's. Hope the kid and driver are ok.”

“To Ash from Barnstaple
Obviously Luke would not chose to ride out in front of a car and you have got to let your children go at a certain age..Also i can not find anything in the story which says that Mrs Draper was with Luke at the time so read the article properly before commenting.”

“the concils idea of extra saftey is to cover up the mud with concrate but which is truely safer to fall on? i think over the years rock park has really gone downhill. if you cant have the speed brought down then maybe there should be more signs that remind motorists to be careful. however if children are going to ride out in front of cars then they will get hit, parents need to take more care when they are at the park with they're children.”

“Keep to the story line.The article is about having extra safety measures in Rock Park.So people should comment about the story(talking mainly to the comments submitted at the bottom ha lesalithe page) and not criticizing Mrs Draper.”

“I think that it is a good idea to have extra safety measures in rock park,because of the new skate park opening and lots of children going down to the park with the nice weather and we want to stop another accident like this happening again.I think people should not comment unless they know the full story,some of the comments are very rude.
At least Luke was wearing a helmet.”

“To Chloe - we did read the story here it is again "Rebecca Draper's 11-year-old son, Luke, was RIDING his BMX bike along the section of Ladies Mile next to the popular park when he was hit by a motorist" The word RIDING tends to give it away a bit unless of course the Journal reporter has made a mistake”

“why do people always put the blame on the parent and say the luke,s mum had not taught him how to cross roads. i now for a fact he was and it took his mum a long time to allow him out on his own and any one with children of luke,s age will now you have to let them do things on there own at some point,he is a very sensible chid, all of the small minded people who have blamed luke should go and sit over rock park for a hour or so and just watch the traffic encluding the bus,s.and i would like to say i have heard that another child has been knocked over and had her leg broken. alice barnstaple”

“Also if u want to know the full story you should read the story in the paper to see what happened. Luke was bein carfull and looking but the car just cam round the sorner when luke pulled out so it was really no-ones folt i think.”

“I think that luke wasn't riding on the road he was trying to get to the cycle path by crossing ladies mile from newport road. There is no cycle path on that side of the road and the kids have no choice but to cross there. I am sure his mum has taught him to be careful on the road but he was NOT cycling on the road as some readers believe, read the article!!!
Luke is very lucky he got away with bruising and cars and buses should not be allowed to drive along that section of the park - how can you get safely across from the newport road side without crossing along there at some point. The good thing is that Luke was wearing his helmit.”