Despite numerous reports of bad driving and errant spectators on the course, police say this year’s TT is no worse than any other.

Instead, they say a concerted media campaign by them to publicise incidents has brought greater public attention.

Monday night’s TT practice started off badly when a spectator had to be removed from the course at Crosby.

The 67-year-old man from Bingley in West Yorkshire received a prison sentence and a five-year ban from returning to the island when he subsequently appeared in court.

In a single night of the races, Isle of Man Newsapapers photographer Dave Kneale witnessed two incidents, both during Saturday’s sidecar race.

’I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: a spectator got on his pushbike, cycled across the road, mounted the pavement and cycled in the direction of Quarterbridge. It was at the end of lap one of the race, the first bikes were approaching the Grandstand and were only a couple of minutes away.

’He was chased down by marshals who, I assume, but didn’t actually see, got him into Douglas Rugby Club before the bikes came through.’

Earlier in the day, at Cronk ny Mona, he said he saw two spectators cross the course, before being detained by marshals and handed over to police. This happened about two minutes before the sidecars were escorted through with a travelling marshal, after the red flag that meant the race had to be restarted.

’I’ve never seen an incident like this before, and I saw two in one day,’ he said.

Inspector Gavin Callow told the Examiner: ’If people go onto closed roads they can face court proceedings, but the police do have some discretion on this where it is clearly an inadvertent act on their part.’

As the Examiner went to press, police Tweeted they had arrested two people for being on closed roads at Ballacrye during yesterday’s (Monday’s) racing.

In a separate incident, a motorcyclist from Stoke-on-Trent was fined £400 after overtaking a roads-open car.

There have also been reports of both cars and motorcycles travelling the wrong way, going against the temporary TT one way system over the mountain course, apparently ignoring the barrier, ’one way’ sign, ’no entry’ sign, cones, right turn arrow and traffic lights. A sign on the approach to Creg-ny-Baa also tells motorists to ignore sat-nav instructions, which will not take account of the temporary traffic direction.

A chair was thrown onto the course at Creg-ny-Baa yesterday.

A new phenomenon in recent years has been the growing popularity of drones - and TT programmes draw spectators’ attention to a prohibition on using drones near to the TT course. Despite this, one was reported being flown in the vicinity of Bray Hill on June 1 and police have appealed for information to identify the person responsible.

Clearly, if one were to crash on the course during a race, this would be dangerous, and flying drones could also pose a threat to aircraft such as the airmed rescue helicopters and those used for filming.

Inspector Callow said it was a problem that was growing as drones become more popular and easier to obtain.

’We have 70 miles of hedges to police and often the culprits have moved on. Really we have to appeal for information and for the public to help police this. It’s your event. You want to watch the racing, so tell these people not to do it,’ he said.