Many motorways now have rumble strips before the junction at the end of the exit sliproad. Since they first began to appear the severity of the riser appears to have increased, causing an unpleasant judder through the steering. I would hate to have to perform an emergency brake on a wet road while travelling over these, particularly on a bike.
The local council round here (Havering) has had the brilliant idea of placing these at random on a straight 40mph road, no junctions in sight, presumably as a "Traffic Calming" measure. Great fun at night or in the wet, when you are first alerted to their presence by a machine-gun attack on tyres and suspension. What sort of idiots are we allowing into positions of power, where they can inflict their half-baked PC safety fads on us?
Maybe I'm missing something, do they really increase road safety. What do others think?
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I agree, the principle of these things at certain hazardous locations is fine, but the severity does seem to be getting silly. One location locally has them on the entrance to a village to slow you down from 60 to 40 mph.They are situated at the end of a long left hander about 100 yards prior to the 40 sign. First time I hit them at about 55 I seriously lost control as the frequency of the first stripes actually seemed to make the vehicle float as if aquaplaning, the second set of stripes, closer together and higher did not help the panic situation and the third set, closer and even higher shook loose some of the circuit board connections inside the diagnostic equipment in my van! The daft thing is that these stripes go right across the carriageway so you hit them all over again after you have left the 40 limit!
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The other current fad is for "pillows" which take your exhaust off in a low-slung car if you get one wheel either side.
On a cycle or motorcycle they have the potential to throw you off if you hit the edge, particularly on an icy road.
Locally these have been installed on a 550 yard stretch of road with a 30 mph limit, effectively reducing it to 20 mph. The road has a fenced playing field on one side and detatched houses set well back from the road on the other. I can think of plenty of more suitable locations for speed reduction measures.
Anyway, if they are making it dangerous to travel at over 20 mph, why not actually reduce the limit, rather than leaving it at 30 ?.
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It might be worth checking with the local authority planning department, and if not them the Highways mob about the accident history on that bit of road and what checks and investigations they did before installing said pillows. If there is none then I bet there is a bl**dy local councillor living on the road. You might be able to object but seeing as they are now down I suspect its too late.
If they are out of spec ie too high you can also get them removed.
The worst pillows I have come across are in Lichfield, Staffs. Not only did they get a mega job lot of tarmac, so they are all over the place, but there is no uniformity in size height even shape, its made an absolute dogs breakfast of the place. So you go along having sussed out that 20 mph is a good speed when you suddenly find one thats just that little bit higher with all the banging and crashing that follows. In fact opening a shop selling sumpguards might be a good idea, its that bad.
It really is worth reading the adverts in the local rag for the planning applications even if a bit boring. They are required by law to post all this sort of stuff including new speed limits in the press. If you start tackling them with a few well chosen arguments if the changes are genuinely unjustified then its somewaht amusing to see the subsequent attempts at plaiting fog.
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It may be worth checking the spec of these, as there is a legal maximuym height and rise. Some LA's employ the cheapest contractors to construct these who may cut corners (or rather leave big corners on the bumps). If they are illegal they should replace them with correct ones (as well as being liable for any damage caused to cars).
Any suggestions of where the specification can be found?
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I think it has got to be on the Highways Agency site.
I have had a look in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges which is where I expected it to be, but I am afraid I could not find it. Its in 16 (sixteen) volumes.
However it will almost certainly need a more diligent search than I could manage, because I cannot believe it's not in there somewhere.
To give you some idea on the level of detail that's in there I am afraid my brain gave up after some of the following topics. The Wildflower Handbook in the Environmental section, the spec for hazardous cattle crossings controlled by traffic lights, and when I got to Fatigue limits for Bailey Bridges I realised I had got to my own fatigue limit!
The index for this "wonderful" tome and all the links to the various sections are at:
www.official-documents.co.uk/document/ha/dmrb/inde...m
Good luck, you will flaming well need it!
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