A ROCK narrowly missed hitting pedestrians when it fell off a stone lorry travelling through a busy high street on Portland.

Fortuneswell resident Darren Claire, 29, feared someone would be injured when the debris landed close to him and then bounced in the direction of a young family.

He said: “I was walking up Fortuneswell High Street when this big stone lorry went past and a stone rolled off the back of it.

“It didn’t have a net covering the back and it landed about a metre away then bounced across the road and nearly hit a young family with a pram.

“I’ve been showing people the stone to warn them to be careful and vigilant if they see another lorry coming along.

“Seeing it bounce across the road and crash near to a young family was a real eye-opener for me.”

Mr Claire said the incident happened at about 3.30pm last Friday and there were lots of young children and families around. He added: “The rock’s about the size of two fists. I reckon if it had hit someone it would have killed them.

“The lorry should have been covered at the back. I’ve seen several others since then and they haven’t been covered either.”

Wakeham resident Linda Whisselle, 62, is among 120 residents who have signed a petition calling for stone lorries to introduce greater safety measures and to stop coating the area in dust.

She said: “Both South Dorset MP Jim Knight and the conservative parliamentary candidate Richard Drax have seen the petition and Jim Knight took a copy away with him.

“At Priory Corner there’s a sharp bend and there’s always a lot of fallen stone there.

“There’s a man who’s had a crack in his windscreen in Wakeham and my brother-in-law had a stone through his windscreen.

“This isn’t a new thing but really somebody is going to get killed unless something is done.”

Both stone quarrying firms working on the island said they knew nothing of the incident.

Operations director Tony Porter of Albion Stone said: “We don’t do any haulage.”

Director of Stone Firms Limited Neil Fuller said: “Nothing has been reported to me at all. We don’t run any lorries ourselves, we contract the job out to hauliers.

“As far as I’m aware, all our contractors use sheets to cover their loads unless they’re carrying the much bigger rock loads.”

He added: “If a piece of stone falls off a lorry, people should report it to the police because it’s an unsafe load.

“It’s the driver’s responsibility to make sure their loads are safe and secure.”