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Residents in one of Canberra's newest suburbs are fed up with "rat runners" cutting through residential streets and creating lengthy delays as they attempt to bypass traffic. Throsby man Andrew Nathan said there had been times it had taken him 40 minutes to get onto Horse Park Drive from his house, which is 1.4km away by road, according to Google Maps. The cause of the issue, he and other residents say, are "rat runners" - motorists using the residential streets of Throsby in a bid to skip the lengthy peak hour queues on Horse Park Drive. Large numbers of drivers are coming off Horse Park Drive to take Bettong Avenue, which winds through Throsby, before re-joining Horse Park Drive at the Well Station Drive intersection. Mr Nathan said "rat running" had been a problem since he moved to Throsby in February. "Given at the time there were less than a dozen completed houses in the suburb, it was painfully frustrating to deal with each morning," he said. Mr Nathan said he had nearly been T-boned three times by drivers who treated Throsby "like a racetrack" in their haste to get back onto Horse Park Drive ahead of the traffic. He had also been abused by drivers at the intersection of Bettong Avenue and Well Station Drive intersection because they had mistaken him for a "rat runner", simply because he was coming from Throsby. "They’ll cut out and take up both lanes [on Horse Park Drive] so you can’t merge in," Mr Nathan said. "One woman wound down her window and abused me. "I was like, ‘I don’t know what you want me to do. I live in this suburb. I’ve got nowhere else to go’." Fellow Throsby resident Ruwandi Perera said "rat runners" added about 15 minutes to her commute if she was going straight to work in Majura Park. She contacted the ACT government through the Fix My Street initiative in June to voice her concerns about the speeding and congestion "rat runners" were bringing to Throsby. She asked if anything could be done to stop drivers coming into Throsby unnecessarily. Ms Perera received a response from Access Canberra which put the congestion down to "a considerable number of road works occurring in the Gungahlin area". These included works on Horse Park Drive, Gundaroo Drive and stage one of the light rail project. "It is expected that once the major roadworks are completed traffic patterns will correct themselves and much of the rat running will subside," Access Canberra wrote in its response to Ms Perera. Access Canberra also encouraged Ms Perera to contact ACT Policing if she was concerned about the "rat runners" speeding. Drivers reported seeing police conducting an operation at the intersection of Bettong Avenue, Horse Park Drive and Well Station Drive on Monday morning, but an ACT Policing spokesman said it was not related to "rat running". "Between 8am and 9am, ACT Policing members from Gungahlin Police Station conducted [random breath testing] and other random traffic checks near Horse Park Drive, Gungahlin," the spokesman said. "This operation resulted in one driver being issued with a Traffic Infringement Notice for an unregistered/uninsured vehicle. "ACT Policing are aware some drivers choose to take shortcuts through Throsby, which is not illegal providing drivers obey the road rules."

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