Speed humps are not the answer

Yes, a child hit by a slower moving car has a better chance of surviving (just one reason people should drive at an appropriate speed for the road conditions) but a child who doesn’t run into the road to get hit in first place obviously has a 100 per cent chance of surviving. Installing yet more speed humps won’t achieve this, but improved road safety education in schools might – this being something the council has in fact been working on. And if speeding in Franklin Road is a problem, then a flashing speed warning sign would be a more cost effective measure than speed humps.

Not only are speed humps expensive and unpopular with the majority (as criticism in The Courier regarding those recently installed in Warwick Street shows) but their safety credentials are debatable. Besides being a dangerous distraction and causing damage and accelerated wear to tyres and other safety critical components, it’s been well established that speed humps have caused many deaths due to delaying emergency vehicles. And as Andy Thomas pointed out in his column, the speed humps in The Parade haven’t made the road any safer. They certainly didn’t prevent the recent incident of a man being hit by a bus, so why expect them to prevent similar incidents anywhere else?

In some parts of the country, councils have actually removed speed humps (sometimes being forced to by residents who never wanted them in the first place) with no detriment to road safety whatsoever. In fact when Barnet got rid of speed humps the accident rate fell significantly.

Speed humps are a road safety red herring, and it’s high time we ditched this obsession with trying to turn every street and car park into something resembling a test track for off-road vehicles. No more speed humps! - Graham Bell, address supplied.