A certain road near me has just had "traffic calming measures" installed. Frankly it's absurd and it's pi$$ed-off a lot of locals. About a dozen speed humps have been installed on this road (30 limit) and there's mini-roundabouts and pinch-points yet to arrive. If I want to go anywhere I have to drive over at least 6 sets of speed humps in. Not happy. [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

There's two aspects to this which I'll follow up. The first is the simple complain route to the Council. The "how could this happen...?" Usual lines of logic:

- details of environmental impact assesment
- accident (inc low-grade/serious/fatal) statistics
- speeding offences
- safety of emergency vehicles using the route
- if the above warrented any additional measure, why was a Gatso discounted?

The other is to try and claim direct compensation. Frankly I'm not at all happy about having to tackle a dozen (inc out/return) speed humps on every journey. That's a direct and excessive cause of wear on my car's suspension.

I've heard anecdotally that some local Councils have had to compensate locals for damage to cars for this sort of thing. Anyone here have any real details to back-up such a claim? I'd like to have facts to hand before I start this 'battle' with the Council.

It's only gonna wear your cars suspension if you take them too fast!
No kids huh?

Simillar thing going on near where I live.

Imagine, 1) Nice road 30mph speed limit with cars parked along verge off road, and 2) another not so nice 30mph limit with parked cars parked along the kerb that runs parallel to road 1.

Now on road 1 the council have narrowed the road, installed parking spaces car park style, road humps you name it. At night the residents now have to put up with cars thumping over the bumps, squeeling tyres, several accidents caused by the priority changes. Whilst road number 2, now gets all the p***ed off drivers that used to use road 1. The residents down here have to put up with the same accidents ripped of wing mirrors, horns etc...

Well done (not) to our local council.

[Edited by mannyo1 - 2/16/2003 2:09:03 PM]

Brun: yes, I can appreciate that parents and non-parents could have generally differing opinions on traffic calming. I'm not going to get into the "is traffic calming always right?" argument.

In this case, it's a fait accompli - the work is underway. My question to the SNet folks is - do you know any real instances of successful complaints against local councils re: imposed traffic calming measures? Further - any knowledge of successful compensation?

My local council have done the same, and 'well done' is the last thing I'd say to them.

The road that runs through our estate is tight and twisty anyway, and not really condusive to any excessive speed. However, no matter which way I go out of the estate, I have to go over at least 8 speed ramps. Some of them are alarmingly high, and 10-15 mph is the absolute max you can go over them if you have any concern for your car.

IMHO, these are excessive, and don't slow down the idiots anyway. Several of our neighbours go over them too quickly, and the fact they bottom out both climbing onto the ramp and diving off it is of no compensation whatsoever. The big 4WD drivers don't even lift for them, so what good is that doing?

Even the police aren't convinced about them, as they feel drivers accerlerate hard between the ramps to make up for time they lose slowing for them.

Despite my never going over them at more than 10 mph or so, I've still had to have 3 drive shafts replaced since I've lived here. Coincidence? I don't think so [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Josh

I think that speed humps must be LESS than 10cm high, otherwise they are classed as an obstruction - also, the angle of impact must be less than 45 degrees. Try 5ive-o in the "Traffic Management" forum for more discussions.

I had a URL for a web-site that explained all this in nice detail, but sadly i have lost it :(

mb

Speed humps have to be 100mm or less tall - the 100mm tall ones have also been proven to speed up traffic in between causing environmental pollution/noise problems. The average speed was 17mph over hte humps, but that climbed massively in between due to the "annoyance" factor or having to slow down that much.

The 75mm one's are alot better, keeping the average speeds to about 22mph IIRC, without annoying people too much to make them speed up in between... :) So I would say, get yer tape measure out and complain if they're too big ;):D

Also - why did you not complain during hte consultation phase? There would have had to be public notices etc? The traffic calming situation can be summed up by an experience I had last week on a public consultation - one resident came into see me asking for the traffic humps to be made longer and larger to discourage large vehciles/other traffic from coming down her road so fast to protect her son/other residents etc....five minutes later another lady comes in saying can we make hte speed humps smaller as the vechicles are making alot of noise! :) You can't please everyone, in the end you have to look at the Personal Injury Accidents, the speed/volume data, the comments of the residents and the evidence from previous studies...and then do what you think right...(with an awful lot of justification! ;):D)

There's a similar thread here: http://www.5ive-o.com/web/viewtopic.php?t=84 which makes quite interesting reading...I can always help with stats etc. if you're looking to make a complaint :)

Jen

P.S. Yes they do help with accident prevention etc.etc. they should always be used as a last resort though in residential areas due to the noise factor :)

I'm hearing you FATMAN, Our hole area is in to it in a big way bumps, chicanes, specs cameras bollards everwhere it's a pain in the arse. One road in particular with the chicanes that are designed to slow you down work, except for the muppets who can't be bothered to use the big round thing they are holding in there hands called a steering wheel! They nearly straight line it through nearly taking the corner of your car off, they realy realy realy wind me up!
There was a bloke in our local paper a while back with a lotus who was battling it out with the council about the bumps as he ripped his exhaust off + other damage and they were basically not interested. He ended up selling his car because it was not practical to have a lotus in his area. :-(

Forgot to say unless you can prove that the bumps are over size as described above it will be very difficult to get compensation.

Forgot they tried to put them up my road but there was a petition made signed by many locals in the area, speeding is not a big issue as it is not a through road and they were stopped.:-)
Think they can go to far with traffic calming, certain areas need it in some form i.e. by schools etc
I would much rather have a few more specs cameras in built up areas than some dreaded big bumps.
leave our Big open A roads alone though.

I've not measured the speed humps yet, but I'd be surprised if they fell foul of any of the dimensional rules mentioned above. The humps are wide, shallow flat things. They don't cover the entire width of the road. Bikes can travel to either side or throught the centre and buses can straddle them.

I will have a look at the 5ive-O forums - good idea.

You are not alone...i think everyone on this forum hates the little f***ers.Whatever the council's reason for putting these speed bumps, be it traffic calming, local schools, need to spend the budget etc etc, there seems to be no set of rules for them to follow.Last place i lived there used to be a set of metal poles for road narrowing(on a bend!!!).they got knocked down every fortnight.Instead of deciding that maybe it was not a good idea and move the poles elsewhere..what did they do. Send some idiots in a council van with some cement and put them back up ready for the next time..
I now live on the only road to have speed bumps and they are not the ordinary road span ones.Oh no..our council has installed the mid road ones with tarmac and bricks in the middle ones.Too high and knacker my suspension everytime.Any schools along the road? NO. 600m further on there is a school. any speed bumps there...you guessed it NO
Rant mode Off

Ahh, they're speed *cushions* then...a different set of rules completly! :) I can let you know all about them when I get to work...(as I'm ment to be leaving in a few minutes! :rolleyes::))

Chris - I have no doubt some councils are complete muppets, but you won't get anywhere if you don't comlpain! :D We have to assess anything we do about three months to a year afterwards (to allow time for it to "settle down") so it might be worth
complaining if you don't like something :)

Oh, and Government funding? It's the opposite one usually! ;):D

I agree totally with you Fatman. Speed humps are damaging to a car, the g loads that go into the suspension and chassis are excessive even at low speeds. It is often necessary to get drivers to reduce speed in certain circumstances but I think that putting that kind of obstruction on the road surface is not the right way to do it. Councils are at liberty now, as far as I know anyway, to create new speed limits in their own areas. They could put a 20 mph limit up and if necessary a Gatso if the area concerned was sensitive to higher speeds, due to children or elderly people. I dont think any of us would object to a speed camera in such a place. I would certainly prefer that to having my car subjected to those kind of thumps etc at 15 mph. These speed limits would have to be realistic though-not just for the sake of restricting drivers unnecessarily.

Les

Ah - but to create a speed limit it has to be self-enforcing, e.g. you can't just create a 30mph speed limit, the speeds along that road either have to be already at a 85th perctile speed of 36/37mph or under or you have to put traffic calming measures in before the speed limit. This is because the police refuse to support anything that is going to be hard to enforce (understandably :)) ...therefore having a "normal" road with a 20mph speed limit would not be viable as it wouldn't be supported by the police...

Hope that makes things a bit clearer... :)

Btw, I hate speed humps to, but in some cases they're justified..IMHO.

I was nearly in an accident caused by a speed hump. One was built around a T-junction, so the area around it was raised. It was twilight so I had my lights on. A car on the opposite side of the road was waiting to turn right across my path. As I went up the ramp just before the juntion (doing about 25mph) he suddenly turned across my path into the side road. I had to stop sharply. He waved at me because he had obviuosly thought I was flashing him on when my headlights were raised to his eye leven by the ramp. :rolleyes:

Cue my favourite line :

Sadly you can't engineer for muppet drivers :rolleyes:

Jen

Thanks for that,but I was talking about roads already in a 30 mph limit which could well be lower and have speed humps.I thought Councils have been given the green light to vary speed limits in such cases.

Les

We had an issue with a spped ramp where I used to live. The council put it in and then lowered it so it was just like a piece of the road (rising road and ramp just made a steeper front and no drop off at back). When I called and asked them why this had been done, they told me because one of the neighbours complained that he could hear the noise as cars went over it! I then asked if they could put a speed camera in as we have a lot if kids in the area and it is after all residential. They said NO as it would cost too much. A camera costs £30k and the life of your child according to the council and local police is worth less!

Sorry Leslie - I wasn't clear - same applies for 20mph limits, only it's *alot* stricter, we estimate the costs of getting one of these in is about £100,000 ...they have to have approval from the secretary of state as well! :eek: :D

Dan, sadly this is a common complaint and the reasons they are removed are usually political (i.e. Councillor pressure) ...although I say "usually" it's def. not "always". As for speed cameras, we'd love to put them outside schools, but it is the local constab's decision. Most have a Traffic Management Dept. get onto them if you're serious, you can usually find the contact details on the web - although, again, they're usually over worked and understaffed/funded :rolleyes::)

Regarding the partial speed humps (the ones bikes can go 'between' etc.) - These allow buses(and many cars if they're worn if the car has a wide track), lorries, vans and bikes to drive through without slowing. WHY? Are these vehicles going too fast perfectly acceptable?

Speed cushions are used for several reasons, firstly on cycle routes (looking at encouraging cyclsts) and more importantly for emergency vehicles to get over (wider wheel base) without causing them unnecessary problems :) Before we do anything like this you have to consult a wide varity of people, if it's a route the emergency services use alot then they'll request speed cushions instead of humps.

Hope that makes sense :)

...oh, they aid on road parking as well, can be important in residential areas :)

I can't imagine the local council / dibbles putting up a cash machine on a road where it wouldn't tax sufficient motorists to cover it's costs.

John.