Speed bumps are just daft

There seem to be quite a few instances where speed humps have been installed without locals requesting them or even being consulted about them simply to suit the political agenda of local politicians and their pals.

In fact in some places the residents have forced the council to remove such speed humps because they don't want the bloody things. So not only was taxpayers' money wasted putting them in, even more taxpayers' is then wasted removing again.

There also seem to be a worrying amount of speed humps that are higher than the 100mm limit laid down in the regulations and are therefore illegal. We have some like that near me - not that the council care.

We've also recently had even more speed humps added without any sort of proper public consultation done, and without widespread public support judging by the resulting letters in the local press.

The council have been challenged to prove that the accidents used to justify these humps were caused by speeding, but surprise surprise there has been no answer.

An independent survey in 2007 revealed that 87% of drivers would like to see speed humps removed. A clear majority, and one that politicians who claim to represent the people need to pay attention to.

today i drove over 200 metres of small yellow humps which are there to tell the stupid half witted motorist that there is a roundabout ahead. strangely enough, the signs which warn of a roundabout are obviously invisible to us all. its all mind bogglingly smack in the face, too much information

I agree that these things are a menace, I have a bad back & live in an area where I can't get home without going over three or four of the cushions. I used to drive a large Merc & barely felt the things. Now I am greener & drive a small Honda it's not possible to go over one at more than 5mph without unacceptable jarring. Are they all put in by big car or van drivers?
There is also the question of danger. If you straddle a cushion it makes it slightly more comfortable but puts an outward force on the tyre & exposes the inner tyre wall to any loose fixings/reinforcing etc damaging the inner wall where it can't be seen in a most dangerous way. The approved way to traverse one is to run one wheel over the centre, thus making it more likely that damage to running gear will be caused in the relatively short term.
On top of all this the constant slowing & accelerating between bumps increases wear in other areas, fuel consumption, noise & pollution. I wouldn't want to live next to one.
We are told that the reason for installing the things is to save life though in all of the areas around me where they have been installed I have never beenaware of a bad accident record on the stretch of road. More likely someone getting a backhander from the contractor. They are more likely to cause accidents with tyre blowouts on the motorway after inner wall damage or due to sudden failure of suspension parts.
If speeding is a problem then it should be dealt with in the proper way rather than making everyones life a misery for the stupidity of the few.
How many coppers could you pay with the cost of one useless scheme of humps & bumps.
I would vote for the removal of them all & the sacking of the little Hitlers who oversee their installation.

Irrespective of the costs, speed bumps are downright dangerous.

I agree with robinhall: Speed humps can inflict potentially fatal damage on car tyres The 'speed cushion' - if straddled, wears the inner tyre walls in a manner that means you have to look for it to notice it - can blow out at high speed later. It also places unatural forces on suspension components/bushes etc. Both suspension failure and tyre failure, should it occur, is more likely than not going to be away from the cushion itself. So the link has been avoided so far, but there is a strong belief that there is such a link. In that case they are a dangerous concept. The Telegraph motoring correspondent, known as Honest John is collecting data to try and expose the issue. The bumps are a poor solution to an often over-stated problem. Chicanes are better for your car, but I have seen 2 head-on collisions because of them.... There must be a better way than damaging cars or causing accidents to address sensible urban driving..

I agree with robinhall: Speed humps can inflict potentially fatal damage on car tyres The 'speed cushion' - if straddled, wears the inner tyre walls in a manner that means you have to look for it to notice it - can blow out at high speed later. It also places unatural forces on suspension components/bushes etc. Both suspension failure and tyre failure, should it occur, is more likely than not going to be away from the cushion itself. So the link has been avoided so far, but there is a strong belief that there is such a link. In that case they are a dangerous concept. The Telegraph motoring correspondent, known as Honest John is collecting data to try and expose the issue. The bumps are a poor solution to an often over-stated problem. Chicanes are better for your car, but I have seen 2 head-on collisions because of them.... There must be a better way than damaging cars or causing accidents to address sensible urban driving..

Speed humps can inflict potentially fatal damage on car tyres The 'speed cushion' - if straddled, wears the inner tyre walls in a manner that means you have to look for it to notice it - can blow out at high speed later. It also places unatural forces on suspension components/bushes etc. Both suspension failure and tyre failure, should it occur, is more likely than not going to be away from the cushion itself. So the link has been avoided so far, but there is a strong belief that there is such a link. In that case they are a dangerous concept. The Telegraph motoring correspondent, known as Honest John is collecting data to try and expose the issue. The bumps are a poor solution to an often over-stated problem. Chicanes are better for your car, but I have seen 2 head-on collisions because of them.... There must be a better way than damaging cars or causing accidents to address sensible urban driving..

War on motorists indeed. Completely ridiculous.

Speed bumps are there to protect children. I couldn't give a toss about your suspension. If you don't want your car to be dmaged, slow the f--- down!

Good idea. Speed bumps should all be removed, they cause even worse rutting and pot-holing around them where cars bang down off of them, meaning even more costly repairs.
I agree with 20mph speed limits around schools, AT SCHOOL TIMES ONLY, and increased fines for breaking that limit.
Roads are for cars, so a smooth surface, efforts to improve traffic flow and widen lanes should be made.
Speed cameras that track over a distance are a much better idea than speed bumps.

"War on motorists indeed. Completely ridiculous. Speed bumps are there to protect children. I couldn't give a toss about your suspension. If you don't want your car to be dmaged, slow the f--- down!"

Really? how does that work then? Do little children hide behind them so can't be hit by the mad motorist in their cars?...Thought not!

Bumps are on roads, children should not be, unless they have used some sort of crossing code and have checked that the road is clear.

I don't want to damage my car by hitting bumps or children so get them both off the road when there are cars in the vicinity.

Couldn't agree more, I feel so strongly about it I started a website www.JoinCRASH.com

Speed bumps surely cost lives because emergency vehicles can't get past them any quicker than we can. I want to know how many people have died because the Ambulance, or the Police or the Fire Service have been held up by hving to crawl over sleeping policemen. It's daft and dangerous, and because it means more accelerating and braking, decreases fuel economy and causes more CO2 emissions.

Even if we crawl over these atrocious things we put unnatural strain on balljoints, wishbone mounts,swivels and tyre walls (yes while cornering we push the bottom of one wheel inwards and the other outwards but the weight or 'G' transfers outward so suspension is designed to cope with an inward push at the bottom of a wheel not the other way round). I have to 'save' my small green car by driving between two lumps so the slopes are inward. Wheelbearings and suspension components only last about half of their expected life though - dangerous!

The other really big dimension to all this is cost - a fortune to put the things there and another fortune to maintain the road that has them in. I have seen this - the lumps were removed in one area, the road mended (it suffered more because of the lumps) and then the lumps were put back. Much longer to do the work and several times the cost. Now that some bankers and some foreign wars have ruined our country can we afford this nonsense?

Yes, please, make them illegal except on private roads and where speed limit is 5 mph or less.

Btarr "I don't want to damage my car by hitting bumps or children so get them both off the road when there are cars in the vicinity."

Children have happily played in the street since the very first cities were created, perhaps for 6000 years. Are you seriously saying that they should spend their days shut indoors just so some boy racers and sad old men with erectile problems (those two groups account for most speeding drivers) can burn up and down outside?

That sort of attitude smacks of the arrogance and 'me first' selfishness which had led to such a decide in civic values in this country.

Captainstanley said "Children have happily played in the street since the very first cities were created, perhaps for 6000 years. Are you seriously saying that they should spend their days shut indoors just so some boy racers and sad old men with erectile problems (those two groups account for most speeding drivers) can burn up and down outside?"

They don't have to be shut indoors you pillock, they just need to play somewhere safe - not in the middle of the road. And as you're so obsessed with children's safety maybe you should think of all the children put at risk by the increased emergency service response times due to all the stupid speed humps in the roads.

This thread is unbelievable - an extraordinary preponderance of very selfish views. I drive a car BUT am very happy to drive slowly in areas where people live, shop, travel to work or school. While speed humps are a frustratingly crude method of ensuring the thoughtless few drive at a sensible speed for the context, they are sadly necessary.

I am also interested that noone has encountered sinusoidal speed humps which are designed to be smooth to drive over at 20mph. While convential humps involve a break in the slope of the road, rather like an angled kerb, Sinusoidal humps are designed with a continuous sine wave profile. They reward courteous drivers travelling at 20mph with a smooth ride, thus encouraging considerate driving.

Those commentators who feel children should not be walking along pavements need to get real. It is not about playing in the road, but about travelling to school or activities on foot. In cities there is just not enough roadspace for all journeys to be made in private cars and children benefit from the exercise gained in walking themselves to school and local activities. It is very worrying that so many people are so car dependent that they now find it too challenging to walk short distances (say up to a mile). At least those who insist on driving should show some courtesy and travel at a speed that does not endanger others.

 

Excellent idea!

Traffic Calming
 
Eco-fascist groups like Friends of the Earth have know about this since the mid 1990s when I wrote to all of them pointing out the extra pollution generated by traffic calming. FoE failed to reply so I rang their London office and was given loads of abuse. If only Pinocchio's nose had been cut for timber then we could have built " Jerusalem " in England's green and pleasant land. ( not the virtual west bank financial apartheid based segregation of the population we now appear to be heading for )
 
I have been following the development of potential Toll Roads ever since during the 1990s when I deduced that road safety was being used as an excuse to obstruct any alternatives. All three main parties are keen to demonstrate just how green they are and combating Global Warming. However, they all appear to support the continued introduction of traffic calming, ( mini-roundabouts etc. ) which increases carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50%, likewise 20 Mph Zones ( without humps or chicanes ) which add to emissions by 10%. The nastier potentially toxic pollutants linked with Asthma are doubled by traffic calming.
 
I believe that the latest statistics are 82% extra CO2, 37% extra NOX, The pollution problem is compounded by drivers driving over humps in too high a gear which means that the potentially toxic unburnt hydrocarbon pollutants linked to lung disease are probably doubled. A 20 Mph Zone allegedly increases CO2 by a " less pregnant " than humps at least 10%, but the potentially toxic unburnt hydrocarbon pollutants linked to lung disease problem remains. When I was waiting at a local village I observed cars coming up the steep hill and going around the corner. Many ( including petrol cars ) emitted black smoke due to being in too high a gear as taught by useless driving instructors to pass the quasi-religious driving test. It could be said that traffic calming is a greater risk to public health than latent asbestos or passive smoking ?
 
The alleged road safety benefits are less than clear, heavily traffic calmed Burnley reported a 44% reduction in child deaths over the past seven years, yet Ribble Valley with minimal traffic calming also reported a fall of 42% despite being far away from any A&E department. The reduction in road deaths is a good thing, but may be mostly due to better paramedic ambulance services and now the air ambulance service. Better medical provision was introduced alongside traffic calming, it may be wrong to give traffic calming all the credit when its contribution may be minimal. I believe that casualties have been cut by 15% in the Borough of Barnet since they ripped out existing traffic calming, casualties for cyclists dropped by twice the London average.
 
It would appear that traffic calming has become a TB infested sacred cow for the eco-fascist leaning groups who were originally and still push for its introduction. It would appear that the eco-fascists cling to traffic calming in the belief that divers will be " irritated " out of their cars and use the train, at least a few anyway. If anyone had deliberately set out to design death traps for cyclists its doubtful whether they could have made a better job of it than traffic calming. I believe the Green Party have now opted for the " less pregnant " option of 20 Mph speed limits but still fail to admit their original mistake.

Perhaps one good reason that they have installed traffic calming in Asian areas in big towns is to help control any future civil unrest. Of course they have it in " rough " white dominated estates also, where the chattering classes consider a large proportion of the inhabitants are at or near the poverty line.

Humps in the road are an ideal protection against anyone stealing a service vehicle in an attempt to break out through the gates or riot police lines. Impossible to get any decent speed up if there are humps everywhere. Its only one easy step to ring fencing certain areas of towns and turning them into virtual Warsaw type ghettos. Nobody will be let in or out without a permit, plenty of work for private security guard companies now that much housing is under the control of housing associations. I believe that locked gates have already been installed on some " alley's ".

 

Getting back to Toll Roads, take the Ribble Valley for example, there were once two national speed limit routes into Preston, the direct A59 and through Longridge. The Longridge route now has a 40 Mph speed limit when it was safe to do 50 on most of the route. Similarly, the old A59 alternative route to the Whalley-Clitheroe by-pass has had the limit cut to 40 from 60, and many 40 sections have been reduced to an often ridiculous 30. I suspect that the busses struggle to keep time legally even though running on a 1960s timetable.

The Corporate Nazis in the civil service have been seriously planning toll roads for at least 20 years. In towns they use traffic calming to obstruct any direct route traffic might find as an alternative to toll roads. The safety fascists are making roads in towns almost totally impassable in decent time and now even TFL admits that it has been deliberately creating extra congestion under Labour's Livingstone.

I can see why they are needed but don't think they need to be so big

If parents took the responsibility for the saftey of their own children, we wouldn't need speed bumps at all.
Why is it up to everyone else to baby sit other peoples children ? You had them, you look after them !
Remove the speed bumps, raise speed limits and jail parents who neglect their parental duty of ensuring they know where their kids are at all times. Roads are for vehicles. Gardens, and public parks are for people. If you you have children and don't have any of these , move house ! If you cannot afford to move house, don't have children in the first place, or get a better paid job. This is called being responsible and not blaming other people for the life you have made for yourself.

Apart from anything else speed bumps and "give way to oncoming traffic islands" increases pollution.
Fuel consumption is best at a constant speed. Stop start motoring emits allsorts of additional noxious gases.
Having been in the Motor Trade I know the additional wear and tear of bumps is good for business but even I do not wish them on anyone.

add more speed more bumps to roads that are used in villages and towns by buses and other hgvs. and more power for a street to vote in the addition of speed bumps on which they live on.

I don't think the abolishment of speedbumps is "selfish". The fact is that speedbumps are often installed in roads where you can't drive above the 20mph limit anyway due to parked cars or other traffic obstructions.
 Also as I stated above, speedbumps don't make roads any safer. They make instances of dangerous crashes much higher as they damage tyres which often puncture when driving at a high speed, causing collisions on motorways.
 There is a general ethos that any traffic calming measure is used to protect children from being run over, but the number of children who are run over or involved in ana ccident in our roads is extremely low. The only difference is that the media like to pick up on it and councillors use speedbumps as a way of pretending to have done something, when really the roads haven't become any safer.