If you do take them to small claims court, you need to make sure it is based on facts applied to laws rather than just saying you don't like them.
You need to gather impressive evidence of the dimensions of the hump and photographs and compare them to the regulations, so make sure you read the regulations first, so that you gather the right evidence to support your claim.
Good luck.
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>as far as I am concerned this is the cause of the spring to break as it is far too steep
so nothing to do with age, wear and tear, manufacturing defect or rust then? All the tests you have had done back that up?
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Being at work (on Time and a Half!) I have managed to fit in a long search of the Law and Stautory Instruments etc into my 15 minute lunch break and have found the following:-
Nature, dimensions and location of road humps
4.?(1) Subject to regulation 7, no road hump shall be constructed or maintained in a highway unless?
(a) each face of it across the carriageway of the highway in which it is constructed is at right angles to an imaginary line along the centre of that carriageway;
(b) it has a minimum length of 900 millimetres measured parallel to an imaginary line along the centre of that carriageway from the point where one face meets the surface of that carriageway to the point where the other face meets the surface of that carriageway;
(c) the highest point on it is not less than 25 millimetres nor more than 100 millimetres higher than an imaginary line parallel to the centre line of that carriageway connecting the surface of that carriageway on one side of the road hump to the surface of that carriageway on the other side of the road hump and passing vertically below that point; and
(d) it has no vertical face of any material forming part of that road hump exceeding 6 millimetres measured vertically from top to bottom of that face.
I realise that this does not cover speed cushions so the search will continue!
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 28/03/2009 at 15:22
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Playing devils advocate here but wouldn't a counter argument be that the spring was already weak for reasons not attributable to that particular local council and that incident just finished the job off?
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No.
1901 English case, Dulieu v. White and Sons, 2 KB 669 where it was stated:
?If a man is negligently run over or otherwise negligently injured in his body, it is no answer to the sufferer?s claim for damage that he would have suffered less injury, or no injury at all, if he had not had an unusually thin skull or an unusually weak heart.?
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I think I might sue my local council, too many road junctions, roundabouts and traffic lights are wearing my brakes out.................................................
Car parts wear out, it may come as a shock to some but they do
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>>Car parts wear out, it may come as a shock to some but they do
Harsh and rather patronising I think. These things are a menace, and if the spring was weakened and pre-disposed to break, then it seems very likely that the accumulated damage had a lot to do with a lifetime of being thumped by "traffic calming" measures.
If the silent majority of motorists stopped to think about the needless wear and damage inflicted by these things they'd elect the first party that pledged to get rid of them.
If there's the slightest chance of giving the council a hard time over this and Surrey_Scientist has the time, he should go for the throat.
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Go for it, give them chance first and if they don't pay up, then use moneyclaim online (Northamton Councy Court)
www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp
Here is a succesful claim that I made for £1300. The Council send 3 people including a solicitor to court to defend themselves!
"The Defendant is soley responsible for
maintaining the carriageway, namely Bluecote
Street in Nottingham, on which a defect
caused an accident resulting in damage to the
Claimant's motor vehicle and a personal
injury to the Claimant.
The Claimant's claim is for damages, as
remedy for part of the cost of repairs
carried out to the motor vehicle to make good
the damage sustained during the accident.
The Claimant claims that the Defendant's
inspection and maintenance regime was
inadequate, and that there was a lack of due
diligence and reasonable care in carrying out
duties."
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My perception of this never ending debate about speedhumps is that many of the complainants drive over them at an unreasonable speed. They are constructed to slow down the flow of traffic because of safety issues. Nobody likes them but there is an uncomfortably large volume of drivers who refuse to accept that they drive too fast in certain situations. Speedhumps become a challenge and we have all seen drivers who virtually ignore them and drive at the speed that they would have done had there been no obstruction in their way. In my opinion that is where most of the damage to vehicles occurs.
My local Sainsburys has speedhumps throughout their car parking area but they are the type that can be negotiated without ones vehicle being subjected to any buffeting if you drive sensibly and slow down to a speed that is reasonable given the dangers to pedestrians and other motorists that are inherent in large (and not so large) car parks. Indeed, it is possible to drive around most of them if the traffic is not too busy but watching cars driving over the high point of most of the obstructions makes me wonder whether they (the drivers, not the cars) do it deliberately either in ignorance of the consequences to their vehicles or for more sinister reasons.
Humps are there to slow us down. We don't like them but if we slow down I reckon that little damage will be caused to our cars. If we protest about them by driving over them as though they weren't there then I'm afraid that most of the damage caused is down to the driver not the authority who constructed the hump. The original poster said that he went over 'his' hump at 15mph, which he claimed was not excessive although he said that the hump was 'quite high'. I would disagree. I think that 15mph over a high obstruction is excessive.
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Scouseford - I certainly don't advocate shooting speed humps at excessive speed. Some of them are very unpleasant at 5 or 10 mph and are actually less uncomfortable at speed.
I have no problem with a 20 limit, or even a 10mph limit in the right place - by all means make a limit and enforce it. But don't build obstructions in a thirty limit that have to be negotiated almost from a dead stop to avoid damage.
Dox - I have never had to replace a coil spring, or indeed any spring since I took off in a Morris Oxford on the canal bridge at Gargrave and landed rather heavily breaking a rear leaf spring!
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If there's the slightest chance of giving the council a hard time over this and Surrey_Scientist has the time he should go for the throat.
Are you going to underwrite surreyscientists losses should he lose?
I replaced a pair of front springs last year and I'm about to do the same again soon (different cars), I see the top coils off vehicles lying in the gutter all the time, they're like tyres, they wear out.
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I agree with souseford, we have a set right outside the house and its noticable that a large number of people just ignore them, or travel over them too quickly.
I have found that 21/22 mph is about right, but there is one hump (a replacement) that is worse than all the others, most people know this and either slow right down, or if possible go round it... its not too high, the sides are not sloped correctly.
I've followed this debate from the start and would have thought that it would be difficult to prove that the hump was at fault and not just that the spring was at the end of its life... I suppose it depends on whether the LA are prepared to fight it or just give in... the only way of finding that out is to try suing them I suppose...
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>>I have found that 21/22 mph is about right
So have a 20 limit and enforce it - your local ones may feel OK at this speed but hit half a dozen of these twice a day and what is the cumulative damage?
They are an illogical abomination. You might as well just leave the roads potholed on the grounds that this will slow people down a bit.
The unfortunate fact is that the council probably does have a good defence in that the last event simply broke an already cracked spring - but would the spring have been in that state without thousands of earlier speed bump encounters?
I refuse to damage my car or tyres over these things, and traverse them at snail's pace if necessary - I'm sure the planners didn't intend me to slow to 0.5mph, or to stay at 10mph between humps to avoid extra brake wear and fuel consumption, and the following drivers often don't appreciate it, but I'm not playing their game.
Enough is enough - I can see this being the next big motorists revolt if say Watchdog made a story out of it. Perhaps too politically incorrect for them, sadly.
Edited by Manatee on 29/03/2009 at 12:18
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Whether or not speed humps are necessary is a different discussion as to whether they are built properly.
I used to have a Golf GTI whose front spoiler grounded on a number of speed humps where I lived, despite me driving over them at walking pace. To me this means either the car was too low or the speed hump was too high.
Cars, of course, are painstakingly designed and built according to construction and use specifications against which they are also independently tested before the manufacturer is allowed to sell them. Whilst there are also construction specifications for speed humps, the ones I have seen built seem to have relied to a large extent on guesswork on the part of those doing the building. I'm guessing councils just farm these jobs out to whomever is cheapest and no one worries too much about checking whether the end result conforms to specifications or not.
I've mentioned this before, but there seem to be an incredidble number of people on this forum and other UK motoring forums who suffer from broken springs. There don't seem to be anything like so many broken spring problems discussed in motoring forums in the US or Germany for example.
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"I used to have a Golf GTI whose front spoiler grounded on a number of speed humps where I lived, despite me driving over them at walking pace. To me this means either the car was too low or the speed hump was too high.Cars, of course, are painstakingly designed and built according to construction and use specifications against which they are also independently tested before the manufacturer is allowed to sell them"
Its not formula one - there is no enforced rules about ride height or splitters/spoilers.
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Its not formula one - there is no enforced rules about ride height or splitters/spoilers.
There are construction and use rules regarding entry and exit angles for passenger cars which are used (among other things) to determine ground clearance, front valence/spoiler depth and exhaust positioning when a car is designed.
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There are construction and use rules regarding entry and exit angles for passenger cars which are used (among other things) to determine ground clearance front valence/spoiler depth and exhaust positioning
really ? -- reference please
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really ? -- reference please
Sorry, can't be bothered trawling through my old Car Industry specs. It's beer time :-)
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Oh I see.
I shall treat your assertion with the care it requires then.
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>>I used to have a Golf GTI..>>
My VW Bora's front spoiler grounds in the same way on many speed bumps despite going over them very slowly.
I recall a few years ago that Sefton Council had to reimburse motorists whose vehicles had been damaged because new speed bumps in Maghull were over the permitted size. All the speed bumps had to be rebuilt.
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have to agree with scouseford, lot of fuss over nothing.
Like speed calming measures or not; thats what they are. I have never had a spring break going over thousands that i do.
I replace springs on cars regularly, sometimes daily. Even after car has just been parked up too. Sadly on a lot of cars they are poorly designed and wear out/break.
I say poorly designed, because some cars such as Rover, Audi, most japanese are hardly ever affected by this issue. Vauxhall, Ford, Renault, Peugeot, VW and others are. So some cars are affected others arent = design issue in my book.
But to a speed hump breaking a spring? Not if the spring is in good roadworthy condition and the speed hump traversed at an appropriate speed.
Claiming against the council just puts my taxes up. Don't do it!
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If a speedhump is in a 30 limit then 29 is an appropriate speed to traverse it without having your car wrecked, always taking into account pedestrians, weather, cyclists etc. If they want the limit to be 20 then post it and enforce it. I appreciate that the limit is not a target but, if the conditions are appropriate, it should be possible to cross a bump/hump/cushion at a speed below the posted limit without damaging any part of your car or spine!
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>>it should be possible to cross a bump/hump/cushion at a speed below the posted limit without damaging any part of your car or spine!
Hear hear!
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Hear hear!
I second that - hear hear again.
As I mentioned in a previous thread, the 20 mph speed limit through our village has been deemed unenforceable and is to revert to 30. Are the speed limits designed and installed to control a 20 limit to be altered or removed for the higher 30 limit? ... No, of course not.
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>>I have found that 21/22 mph is about right So have a 20 limit and enforce it
Ok, M, how do you propose to ensure that the vast majority of the motorists go down our road at 30 (the limit, btw) without them (and bear in mind costs when you propose something, 'cause we taxpayers have to pay for it)...
It is a 30 limit but the normal speed was 40 or so by the majority before they introduced them, they tried speed traps and that only worked when they were around, rest of the time speeds went back up. Its a residential street in a 60s/70s built estate and anything above 30 is wholy unacceptable, but that doesn't seem to get through to people...
So we got the humps...
I've said before that I don't like them but they are a neccessary evil until someone comes up with a foolproof and cheaper method of ensuring that people don't exceed the limit in residential streets then we'll have to live with them...
As for an "illogical abomination", actually they are not, they are a very logical step taken by authorities when people cannot, or will not, abide by the law of the land.
Edited by b308 on 29/03/2009 at 15:52
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>>As for an "illogical abomination", actually they are not,
Roads should not be designed in a way that damages cars and their occupants, increases noise and emissions, and distracts the driver. But you are entitled to your opinion.
>>Ok, M, how do you propose to ensure that the vast majority of the motorists go down our road at 30 (the limit, btw) without them (and bear in mind costs when you propose something, 'cause we taxpayers have to pay for it)...
It would be an idea to site cameras where they are actually useful wouldn't it? The technology is available, and it could be deployed as budgets allow - speed humps and the attendant paraphernalia are not free either, millions have been spent.
If obstructions have to be used, there is a whole series of alternative traffic management/calming options available. Only in Britain do we seem to need these things in such numbers. They are a plague, and the local authorities that have rejected them are not, apparently, seeing an increase in accidents, quite the reverse.
I also live on a straight stretch of road in a 30 limit where some drivers are accelerating hard and hitting 60, before braking for a bend 200m further on. I'd like the limit enforced, but I do not want half a mile of humps under any circumstances.
Edited by Manatee on 29/03/2009 at 16:13
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I've said before that I don't like them but they are a neccessary evil
I fully agree with you, when the satellite technology is in place for road pricing these things maybe won't be so essential as road speed will be automatically recorded anyway, not something i'm looking forward to for many reasons.
Until then some drivers will insist on driving at idiotic speed in the wrong place and humps are one thing that helps to slow them down.
Ironically enough the humps work better against the chav type with lowered bespoilered cars that cannot cross these things fast without damage/pain, and as they are often one major group of offenders thats a good thing.
If they want to brake violently for each bump and speed back up till the next, it has the same effect in that their usual heap of a car won't last long either so another good thing.
Unfortunately they don't work well against the number one offender...white van man, and i can't see a way of making them drive sensibly anyway.
Until then if people want to go thumping over humps at the speed limit they'll just have to pay for the resultant damage to their cars.
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Thanks, GB, put it much better than I!
A minority spoiling for the rest of us, as usual....
M,
>>Roads should not be designed in a way that damages cars and their occupants, >>increases noise and emissions, and distracts the driver.
I agree, but until you can get some common sense into our fellow drivers then we're stuck with them...
>>It would be an idea to site cameras where they are actually useful wouldn't it? The >>technology is available, and it could be deployed as budgets allow - speed humps >>and the attendant paraphernalia are not free either, millions have been spent.
But humps are cheaper than the alternatives, including cameras which only work actually where they are located (if the fixed type) and average ones don't work in residential streets because people will speed past them and then stop in their drive before the next one...
>>If obstructions have to be used, there is a whole series of alternative traffic >>management/calming options available.
Such as? They also tried the "block half the road" chicanes but they didn't work... sorry, m8, but the only thing that actually slows most people down was humps, so thats what we got!
It seems that the only way forward is going to be some sort of electronic control, as GB says, but that will also take all the fun out of motoring...
But perhaps if we motorists actually took some responsibility for our actions and actually drove at appropriate speeds for the location they wouldn't have to, would they... but, from my experience on the road I live on, that just doesn't happen, because there's always some joker(s) (please substitute a stronger word) who won't play ball and spoils it for everyone...
Well, I hope they'll be satisfied with the results... not!
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What a load of sanctimonious garbage people talk about these offensive and wholly unnecessary things, most of which are illegal if they are only supposed to be four inches high anyway.
AS HJ points out they are one reason why well-heeled city dwellers buy otherwise unnecessarily large and high vehicles, and why special desert-racer developed suspension would be a good idea for an urban runabout.
That way we coulld ignore the things while local authorities slowly realise that they can't afford to carry on spending a fortune hampering traffic flow and obstructing the road system, and spend the little they have left repairing the road surfaces and getting them back in decent condition. Damn carphounds.
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There seems to be 2 different discusions on this thread.
1 Do we like humps etc? We all dont
But the op question was, did it damage his spring. The answer is directly, no; it may have contributed, but so did other factors too.
Pursuing the councils and raising my taxes over wear and tear items is virtually a dead loss unless you can prove it is built wrong, and that the spring was in good condition before mounting it, and wasnt speeding when he hit it etc etc.
Simply disliking humps is not going to change the answer to the question.
30 mph outside a school at kicking out time may be legal; but its not safe. Because people have been brainwashed into thinking that 30 (or 20) is acceptable everywhere and no longer drive at an appropriate speed for the surroundings we are stuck with these items that annoy rather than calm ! However, trying to maintain 30 at all costs in the 30 limit is part of the reason we have got them!
Think about your own driving standards before knocking attempts at trying to curb you. Yes YOU !
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Surely you can't mean me yorkiebar? I was thinking about my own driving standards, in highly critical fashion too, decades before greed, corruption, stupidity and too many badly driven automobiles provided local authorities with excuses for these false and irksome quick fixes.
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If you wish it to include you Lud, you may.
But i meant you plurally, not singularly !
It was actually at all of us! Myself included. We all drive perfectly and its always the others I know !
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having perused the aforemention points to affirm a conclusive overview of the stautory requirements of traffic calming measures (i read what everyone wrote) i think that what we have here is a traditional 'we changed they didnt occurance'.
most newer cars these days have slimline tyres, and are lower to the ground, whereas the local authories are still blindly following legislation that was concieved when cars rode on 4 inches of rubber and you could get underneath without jacking the car up and dintnt come with bits that protude below the front bumper, so really i think its about time the rules for building traffic calming measures were changed to accomodate the changes in car design
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My 53 Vectra (that I've virtually owned from new) had a broken front spring at the last MOT on about 65k. I've never had a broken spring on any of the nine cars I've owned (even the old bangers I drove as a student)
I asked the tester what could have caused it and he said speed humps/cushions. It's par for the course these days apparently. Oh, and I do drive over these "devices" gently.
Edited by Marc on 29/03/2009 at 23:54
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2001 was the turning point for spring manufacture
after this time they are all made in pontefract out of liquorice
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I regard speed humps as no more than an irritation, and it depresses me that authorities consider them as a solution to any problem; but I don't object violently to trundling over them as gently as is required to avoid damage.
What I really object to, is the obstruction they must present to vehicles in a serious hurry, such as a loaded fire engine or an ambulance with an injured person who would prefer to travel more comfortably.
It seems too much like authority saying 'if you won't conform to our driving standards willingly, we shall have to make it less pleasant for you'; and for all other drivers, of course.
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Car parts wear out it may come as a shock to some but they do
Absolutely. A friend had a front spring on her Citroën C3 break and the car had never been over a speed hump in its life.
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The number of speed humps must vary widely from one area to another. I do 10,000 miles a year and I only see one hump, and that's in a cul-de-sac that I don't use very often.
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