Traffic calming measures and the environment...

[Cobbles]

Yes, they cause damage, both to the buildings and the road, and they shorten the life of motor vehicles. But only because most drivers are to stupid to drive over them correctly.

So what exactly is the "correct" way to drive over a speed bump?

I can't recall ever seeing a public information film describing this or warning of the potential danger that is caused by adding another road hazard that simply takes away from the attention that someone can pay to looking out for other road hazards.

 

[Buffalo Bill]

That may be it, but it's not all of it. Otherwise, to take a reductio ad absurdum position, motorways would be carnage. And to take a similar position in the opposite direction, we might as well put a man with a red flag in front of every car and restrict them to walking pace.

Well, I wouldn't be unhappy with that!



Motorways are the safest roads for motorists, because there no junctions, no traffic lights, no sharp turns, and no inconvenient pedestrians or cyclists. But we're not talking about motorways, we are talking about London roads, the vast majority of which feature all of those things.

The trick is to find a balance, and then enforce it in the most effective way possible. I don't believe that speed humps ARE the most effective way possible, or even A particularly effective way.

OK, the evidence doesn't seem to support the latter assertion, but I agree with the point that there are more effective and preferable ways of getting drivers to use appropriate speed.

It always amazes me that we go to so much trouble to make straight, smooth roads, and then litter them with chicanes and bumps. They're indiscriminate - emergency vehicles have to crawl past/over them, and buses often struggle with them - and they only actually force people to drive slowly while they're negotiating them. They also cause a lot of damage to vehicles, inconvenience cyclists, and I note that road surfaces around them often need (expensively) replacing to deal with the great gouges out of the top surface that appear.

Yes, it amused and annoyed me to see roads in Hackney that had been bumped, where the pot-holes that pre-existed the 'bumping' had not been filled in. On some roads, the volume of the pot-holes appeared to exceed the volume of the bumps...

 

[pembrokestephen]

I think that there are a lot more ways that are more effective, but to answer your point about speed cameras, I honestly don't know whether the cameras have reached the limit of their usefulness.

Speed cameras reached the limit of their usefulness the moment their existence was used to justify reducing police patrols.

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Yeah, that's totally true. Cameras are no substitute for actual traffic police.

 

[bluestreak]

regarding those warning signs that flash when you're going too fast. i've spent some time observing two particular examples of those things over the last couple of years due to being an inquisitive bastard and would like to state that in my observation they have no effect at all. i've seen very few drivers slow down when the lights flash, a vast minority. i would be interested to see if there are any studies which would prove me right or wrong on this one.