"dump the hump" on its own isn't going to make headway with councils, which are increasingly concerned to reduce speeds in residential areas.
The councils will want an alternative way to limit speeds. One which is relatively cheap to install, low-maintenence, and -- ideally it should work by prevention rather than prosecution.
If you don't want speedbumps, what's the alterantive?
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Do what Derby council did a few years ago when they resurfaced the A6 through Alvaston - put down a really coarse road surface that's physically painful to drive over at anything above 30 mph. Or go back to cobblestones which would have the same effect.
Don't know how much effect it'd have on the school run housewives in the 4x4 though.....
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Or go back to cobblestones which would have the same effect.
Disagree on this one.
Even though the heat input to the dampers can be considerable, and likewise the wear and tear on all suspension components, cobblestones taken at 'speed' can be as smooth as silk to the passengers inside a car - I have done it on several Belgian main roads (now tarmaced) many times. They also tend to have zilch friction capacity (read ability to stop), and that's on a dry day!
When I lived in Kuwait, the unsurfaced desert 'routes' (I refrain from calling them roads) used to get very badly ridged. In terms of size, these ridges would be like two inch diameter pipes laid transverserly across the road every six inches for great distances. Take them at 10 mph, and you had a horrid jolt-jolt-jolt movement (as well as taking all day to get to your destination). Take them at 30 mph, amd the shaking imparted to the dashboad in particular was truly violent. Take them at 40mph, and things were getting smoother. Anything above fify, and you hardly knew they were there, though again, suspension component replacement was common.
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As Singer, and to be fair others on previous threads have pointed out IF these humps were safe to travel over at the posted speed limit then us degenerate petrol heads would have no arguement and surely this is possible if competent engineers are employed? (obviously I mean foreign engineers, the 'best' firm of UK consulting engineers could not even design a pedestrian bridge that was safe for pedestrians) but they are not! They are effectively car traps designed by supporters of the Kymer Rouge concept of taking us back to year zero.
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IF these humps were safe to travel over at the posted speed limit then us degenerate petrol heads would have no arguement and surely this is possible if competent engineers are employed?
But the whole point of the speed bumps is to force drivers to slow down, way below the speed limit, to a speed that's appropriate for that sort of road.
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But if the speed limit posted is unsuitable for that road, why isn't a lower limit posted?
I think it's more accurate to say that the humps are designed to slow you down to well below the speed limit so that the speed you attain BETWEEN the humps is the limit or lower.
I can think of plenty of examples of 30mph roads, which are perfectly safe to travel along at 30mph, which have humps that can't be traversed at anything over 10.
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But if the speed limit posted is unsuitable for that road, why isn't a lower limit posted?
Precisely. The things are designed to prevent speeding. Therefore, if it's unsafe to travel at the speed limit along a given road, then the limit's wrong, so reduce it to a speed that is appropriate, and then (if you must...) install road furniture that is so engineered to make it deeply uncomfortable for anyone to exceed that limit.
Round here, we have a couple of roads used as local rat-runs which have those wretched "cushion" things (i.e. 3 small, square humps in a parallel line across the road) in them. Naturally, everyone tries to go round them (i.e. wheels either side) to avoid hitting them (and if you do hit one at anything much above 15 mph, it will, as I have observed on more than one occasion, nearly flip the car over - road safety??? Hmmm...) Trouble is, in going round them, you either have to go over the one on the left side, nearly clipping the kerb, or the one in the middle, which means you have 2 wheels on the wrong side of the road. As you can imagine, the amount of near-head-on collisions that this produces is substantial.
Of course, the official answer to all this would be "You're supposed to go over them, not round them", to which my response would be "Have you actually ever observed human nature at all?" The net result is that these roads are, if anything, more dangerous than it was before. Good work, guys.
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those wretched "cushion" things
On the days that I drive to the office (usually WFH) my journey has been transformed since replacing Vectra GSi Estate with V70 Estate.
Why?
The wider track now means that instead of having to deal with the humps in the various manners described, they might as well not be there. Result.
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The alternative is fair,will save lives and give the standard of motoring in this country a boost. Catch the speeders and dangerous drivers - punish them. It really is that simple. Humps and bumps solve nothing, indeed I think they cause more problems than they solve. Lets be fair though,put it to the room vote, bumps a good idea or not?
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Catch the speeders and dangerous drivers - punish them
So, are you saying replace every speed bump with a camera? Or how else are you gonna catch all theose who speed down the small residential streets?
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Oh dear - we're here again.
I haven't read all of the above posts but I did see NW and BB's posts. If the limit is 30, then why do you have to slow down to 2 to traverse a speed bump? It would make more sense if the limit was 10....or of course if the speed bumps could be crossed at 30 but that's a silly idea.
Adam
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Two traffic calming measures i've seen which actually work:
1. Similar to the cobblestones idea above, in Holland many residential roads are 'crazy-paved' instead of asphalt. The road noise and tiny vibrations at anything over 30mph are slightly disturbing and you generally have a greater awareness of your speed. These worked on me as on a normal road surface i would have exceeded the limit normally. No doubt these crazy-paved roads are expensive and wear quicker than asphalt, but i would think that from 30mph the stopping distances would be similar.
2. Secondly there was a road near me which until recently had some nice speed-bumps (the table type) which you could clear at 20-25mph with little discomfort, but any higher speed would give you a big jolt. They used a good red brick design and in profile would have looked like a stretched bell shape. This meant your wheels followed the curve of the bump rather than hitting the bump at an angle. The council recently ripped them out and replaced them with 'crash' type bumps instead.
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I know this duplicates a previous post of mine but ...
Our Local Authority apparently has a policy of 'making good' those speed humps which have had bits gouged out of them by car sumps, suspensions, etc.
How cynical is that?
Oz (as was)
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There used to be a really good way of catching speedsters, remember the gentlemen who would stop motorists who broke the law? Traffic police was the name they went by and they they were more effective than humps and bumps and cameras. They could also use discretion and a warning from them was enough for most folks to behave behind the wheel.
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