Do you have traffic calming on your street?

[Donkmeister]

Does anyone here have any sort of traffic calming on their road? What are your views on it? Did it have the desired effect?

I live on a residential road that has a speeding problem with about 1% of drivers. About a mile up the road from me, the residential road becomes a 60mph country lane. It's a fairly typical residential road, cars parked on the street, people walking their dogs, delivery drivers dropping off shopping etc. The only discerning features are that it's a decent width and it joins up to a B-road.

Almost every car and bike obeys the 30mph limit, but there is a small, dangerous minority of berks who do 60+ past my front door! My neighbours are getting really peeved about it too. So I'm thinking of doing something about it and asking the council to solve the problem.

If I petition the council to do something about it, I'd imagine they'd either: 1) install speed bumps (which are really noisy to live near due to "rev rev ker-chunk" sounds)
2) install road narrowing (which would cause absolute havoc during rush hour)
3) install a Gatso (which is only useful for the 50 yards it serves and I don't fancy having a radar pointed at my house 24/7)

Any systems out there that don't have the side effects of the above three?

 

[joe-90]

You don't get them just by asking. There has to be death or injury first.

 

[FourFootMedia]

There has to be death or injury first.

Depending on the local council it has to be multiple deaths.

 

[namsag]

Not around my way loads and loads of streets in several towns been done with no accidents let alone deaths.

 

[dextrous]

Start by getting a petition from as many people on your road as possible, to demonstrate both need and desire!

 

[securespark]

You don't get them just by asking. There has to be death or injury first.

Not so.

With our council, I wrote, complaining of high speeds on our road. The council wrote back, saying they would gather evidence of vehicle speeds on our road over the period of a couple of weeks. If these speeds were high, they would look into measures to calm them.

 

[Donkmeister]

The council wrote back, saying they would gather evidence of vehicle speeds on our road over the period of a couple of weeks. If these speeds were high, they would look into measures to calm them.

Ah, is that what they're doing when you see a pair of pneumatic switches across the road? If you see some appear on your road then at least you'll know they're doing something.

Fortunately no accidents yet, just some near misses. I witnessed a coach driver nearly crash whilst taking evasive action to avoid an oncoming speeder, he skidded onto the pavement but fortunately it was 5am so no-one walking about.

Thing is, it really is a small minority so measuring average traffic speeds wouldn't achieve much. It's a tiny minority of drivers but they're driving so far beyond what is safe that sooner or later it will end in tears.

 

[fekarrs]

3) install a Gatso (which is only useful for the 50 yards it serves and I don't fancy having a radar pointed at my house 24/7)

Don't think that the camera will be pointing at your house, unless its in danger of breaking the 30 mph limit!

 

[Donkmeister]

Don't think that the camera will be pointing at your house, unless its in danger of breaking the 30 mph limit!

No chance of that happening - my DIY projects are measured in ice ages!

 

[nickso]

Not around my way loads and loads of streets in several towns been done with no accidents let alone deaths.

some councils have a hard-on for "traffic calming". im waiting for my own council to install this ****e in my estate, im amazed they havent already and if it wasnt for the the fact they are stone broke ill bet they would have already.

i have no problem with "traffic calming" as long as it doesnt slow me down. in the works van i just drive over anything at any speed i like as i dont have to pay for the damage. if they install it in my street and my own low slung crappy cars scrape over them i think i would re-model them late at night.

 

[ColJack]

put up a sign saying "slow down idiot", then hide behind a bush 30 yards down the road, jump out near one and watch him screech to a halt or swerver accross the road...
when he gets out all angry and shouty, just say, "well they did put up a sign to warn you about me.."

 

[wotan]

put up a sign saying "slow down idiot", then hide behind a bush 30 yards down the road, jump out near one and watch him screech to a halt or swerver accross the road...
when he gets out all angry and shouty, just say, "well they did put up a sign to warn you about me.."

Motorcycle examiners years ago used to do just that, for the emergency stop, a few got killed, when they jumped out in front of the wrong motorcycle.

Wotan

 

[masona]

If I petition the council to do something about it,

Our road was 30mph but now 20mph as it's in the school zone area, 4yrs ago I went to all the schools nearby to sign the petitions including all the parents, neighbours and people walking by, over 700 signed up. Also got our local MP involved. They put in 2 black cable across the road to measure the speed limit and agreed the average motorists is speeding but council didn't have any money for the project but eventfully it was done. It won't happen overnight but you got to keep fighting it.

 

[Goldberg]

You don't get them just by asking. There has to be death or injury first.

That's just not true - in the village where I live, calming measures have been built because the average speed was far too high.

The residents also implement additional traffic calming - at each T junction, when a car is seen piling through the village at warp speed, we just pull out into their path and make them slow down.

 

[Steve]

Our street isn't really long enough to "speed" on, but we do get idiots racing up and down - those that accellerate as fast as they can then quickly slam on the anchors to brake quickly. The road at the top of here is longer, a 30 limit, but outside a school too. There is no additional calming besides a lollipop lady an hour per day. The speeders come out at night though, and I have seen them doing up to about 50 on that road.

Up on the nearby estate (late 50s housing), the streets are only just wide enough for a bus and a car to pass each other (presume an attempt to cram more houses in) - therefore these streets are self-calming, and anyone that speeds is asking for it.

The best calming IMO is the "half-island" type, with a piece of pavement sticking halfway across the road, causing one way to give priority. I have seen these successfully used in situations such as the OP's where a country road meets residential. You have to have two opposites though, or else one way will always still speed. Works well with square sleeping bobbies too, where you can straddle them with the wheels.