Many residents are miffed about the lack of road safety being shown, with some reporting groups of women five abreast push.

People also take their dogs on a leash to the circuit but while they may stay on the side of the road, the animal is out in the middle of the track on a three-metre leash.

Mark Rayner lives at Mount Panorama and is also the circuit manager for Bathurst Regional Council.

He knows better than anyone the potential perils some of the walkers may face. 

“It just continues to astound me how dangerous it’s getting up there,” he said. 

“From a resident’s viewpoint it’s plain dumb. Most of them walk side-by-side on the wrong side of the road with their backs to the traffic and a lot are also wearing dark clothing, certainly not colourful, high-vis outfits.

“You see it all the time. It’s just not a safe practice and it’s worse at places like The Cutting or Forrest Elbow.

“If a car is hanging close to the wall in case a vehicle coming down the track is cutting the corner a bit short and there’s walkers on the inside, you could be in big trouble.

“People have to remember this is a public road. They don’t walk down the main street of Bathurst, or Parramatta Road for that case, doing what they do up at the Mount.”

Mr Rayner said it’s all about common sense.

“Don’t go up there in the dark of the early morning or at twilight wearing dark clothing and don’t walk two, three, four or five abreast,” he said. 

“My message is that there’s plenty of other lovely places around Bathurst to go for a nice walk. From the track’s management perspective, we’ve had meetings with the highway patrol and local road safety officer about this issue and what can be done.

“The best advice is to walk on the other side of the road so the traffic is coming at you head on and at least you can take evasive action.”

Mr Rayner said the situation will only get worse as the number of walkers increase as the weather gets warmer.

“During high volume times it’s hard to get a parking spot down near Murrays Corner and along Pit Straight near the start/finish line,” he said.

Jenny Macintosh lives up towards the end of Mountain Straight at Mount Panorama, next to Algona Estate.

She said yesterday the walkers put themselves in real danger.

“The other day I was driving home up Mountain Straight and when I got to the crest of the hill near the Pedders sign there were five people walking side-by-side,” Mrs Macintosh said.

“They were taking up a big piece of the track. I couldn’t see what was coming the other way so I had to pull in behind them and wait.”