Quake expectations

In 1990 or thereabouts Wandsworth Council installed road humps - one directly outside my house. The vibration as cars and large vehicles fail to slow down on it really shakes the house. I noticed that within a couple of years of installation vertical cracks appearing in the front bay of my property - which is 5-7 m away from the hump. I have read letters recently on your pages about garden walls cracking etc and I wondered whether the cracks in the bay have been caused by the traffic on the road hump - is it possible to prove this as I have found Wandsworth Council quite intractable on a number of issues?

Asked on 25 January 2010 by LC, London SW18

Answered by Honest John
Almost certainly. Though some specialists doubt that shocks caused by vehicles crashing over speed humps are enough to damage nearby buildings, or even sewers beneath, it all depends on the stability of the land. The photo shows a collapse building on Berkhamsted high street immediately adjacent to a ‘speed table’. Earth tremors from the percussion of vehicles crashing over road humps can destroy the sub structure of the road, damages sewers and old iron water mains beneath and damages garden walls and buildings. You can see this plainly by the fresh potholes that surround some speed humps in the winter. Get a structural engineer onto the job, then proceed to sue the council for the full cost of rebuilding your house. The more people do this the sooner we will get rid of humps.
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