Standards of driving on Canvey are below par and need to be improved, the town’s mayor has claimed following a series of serious crashes.

In yesterday’s Echo alone, there were reports of a 14-year-old girl being thrown over a car’s bonnet while she attempted to cross the road, and a report on a fatal collision between a man in his 80s and a car.

And as a result, town mayor, John Anderson, has slammed drivers on the island and further afield, as well as calling on all residents to take care behind the wheel.

He said: “My wife and I constantly complain about the state of driving on Canvey, and in the whole of Essex.

“I would not like to say it is just in Canvey, I regularly drive through Rayleigh, Corringham and Basildon, and it is exactly the same.

“The standards of driving is abominable.

“Doreen and I both have our own cars, and are very active, but the drivers seem to be in such a rush, they drive so fast.

“It seems to me that drivers don’t necessarily know the laws of the road, or they are choosing to ignore them.

“You see it every day, drivers do drive very fast, and they are not showing any consideration to road users.”

On Monday night a man in his 80s died in Fairlop Avenue at the junction with Long Road, Canvey.

A 56-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.

While the hunt is on for a hit-and-run driver who crashed into a 14-year-old girl on Canvey High Street on Friday night.

And recent months have seen a host of accidents on the island, in November three people were hospitalised after a crash on Meppell Avenue, and in October a girl, eight, was thrown in the air after being hit by a car on a busy road in Craven Avenue, Canvey.