The other end of Westbourne Park Road, a series of bends and junctions with large desirable residences down one side and a mixed bag on the other, is being resurfaced and is for the moment devoid of its very nasty, sharp, eroded speed bumps. I often have cause to drive along it and it was such a pleasure today to waft over the new surface and even to rumble over the scoured 'temporary surface' without having to consider those awful gratuitous obstructions and without all that accelerating and decelerating along with the suspension wear and damned general discomfort of the things.
Have the residents, I wonder, got sick of the eternal thumping, graunching and extra pollution made by cars doing their best to drive down a wilfully damaged road, and urged the local authority to restore the road to its proper configuration?
I do hope so. If not I will dream up some swear-filter evaders for screaming and kicking purposes here.
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Hi Lud...Glad you had a good waft.
I think your bumps have been melted down and sent to Derbyshire. Drove from Chesterfield to meet the A6 at Dove Holes on Sunday. Pleasant road now spoilt by a series of 3 blocks of 4 'mini speed bumps' before every bend...except the most savage one at Sparrowpit. Then, on the Chapel en le Frith by-pass there must be about 30 of these damn things before each of the two roundabouts. Like a bucking bronco ride.
Do they really think we need these things ? They're only thick yellow paint so they must be a cheap way of the few annoying the many !
Then, to top it all off, I got behind a grade one, star studded mimser on the M60 doing 40 in the middle...I couldn't get past for all the 90mph boys in the overtaking lane
Not a happy trip
Ted
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In this quasi-dystopian world, speed humps are a necessary evil really, I loathe them like all drivers but - I live on a mile long road which is downhill into town and without said sleeping policemen, the nutters would drive even faster down this road.
They are obviously far from ideal, causing much pollution & noise, in fact there is one right outside my house which the local farm vehicles *hit* at 4-30am on their way to the local cattle market!
If we did away with the speed humps, how could we slow down the 'bats out of hell' ?
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If we did away with the speed humps how could we slow down the 'bats out of hell' ?
And there is the problem in a nutshell - we have one right outside our house and though I don't like it it has slowed down the vast majority - what used to be a 40mph road now has an average speed of a lot less than 30, and is much better for it... I just wish that there was a better method of keeping people's speeds down.
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The road my house is on will soon become a 20mph limit, hopefully without inverted potholes, but probably get one right in front of the house.
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Perhaps that is the answer then O/N - speed limits, that'll stop em!
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Perhaps that is the answer then O/N - speed limits that'll stop em!
I live on a small development about 10 years old. It has been designed with short lines of sight and speeding is not a problem. Both ends of the road meet the same road (horse shoe shape) so no through traffic. Speed bumps are not required but I bet we get them.
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I had a look at what may be the road Lud mentions. First time I`ve tried the Google, `rotating street view` - can`t see the road humps though. Is that the one Lud, in Westminster?
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It is in Westminster at that end, yes. Once it passes the end of Chepstow Road (I think) it becomes Kensington though.
If you open the street view at the end of WP Road, the junction with Porchester Road, and track back using the arrows in 'street view', you will pass through the curves and junctions I was talking about. I'm surprised you didn't see the bumps, because if you do that you will see several (although the street view scene is strangely elongated and makes them seem fewer than they are in the flesh). Nor can you see except in one case just how eroded and horrible they are, or rather were.
But 'street view' is quite flexible, and you can enlarge the image, turn it round and face the other way, etc.
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>>> . It has been designed with short lines of sight and speeding is not a problem. Both ends of the road meet the same road (horse shoe shape) so no through traffic. Speed bumps are not required but I bet we get them. <<<
Ah - I see what you mean O/N ... my road is a rat run into town, the speed limit is 20 MPH and with a little help from the humps, most people stick to the limit but ... when I'm out walking my dog very early or late, I've seen numbskulls hit them so fast they've literally taken orf!
I'd be surprised if they give your access road the hump!!
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"I'm surprised you didn't see the bumps"
That`s because I don`t know how to use street view ;-)
I wondered what that long arrow was!
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Another bit of good news re speed bumps.
Victoria Rd. in Botcherby, Carlisle used to have some really nasty speed bumps.
However, the road has just been tarmaced, including the bumps and it is now much smoother and car friendly.
The down side, the police have been stricter imposing the 20 mph limit past the school on this road. Oh well, fair does.
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I was recently working in that neck of the woods Lud and I fully agree with you.In order to achieve a reasonable journey time from Cricklewood over to the Harrow Road/Scrubbs lane area it was necessary to go via Temple road and through the residential streets and it was Hell.It coincided with the roadworksfest in the area and one morning it took me an hour and a half to get from Sutherland ave to Scrubbs lane.
Every evening it was a pleasure to return to LB of Barnet where it's the policy to not replace the inverted potholes.
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Temple Road eh... have an old friend living there isisalar.
I must say an hour and a half from Sutherland Ave to Scrubs Lane sounds well over the odds even on a very bad day... I won't ask which way you went!
Let us hope that Westminster has turned over a new leaf and will be copying Barnet on speed bumps. But I won't be holding my breath because they have been middling evil up to now...
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I was having a nice relaxing drink after work and saw the speed hump post.......now I will need to pour another drink to calm down. I hate the things and the solution to speeding is simple......catch the speeders and leave the rest os speedhump free. Basingstoke is needlessly infested with them but I guess other places are worse.
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Road with humps near us was resurfaced to a wonderful smooth finish without humps...... for about 3 weeks. Then the new surface was dug up & the humps replaced. No escape I suspect - they'll be back!
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Lud if you can believe it I went down the Harrow road.Gridlock city.They had alternate lane lights near where All souls ave almost joins Harrow road I'm sure you know where I mean.They also had alternate lane lights at the junction of Tubbs road and station road Harlesden which I had to go down to access Nightingale road where I was working.It cost me £115 a week to park and I had to move the van at least 3 times a day,if I had to go round the block it would take at least 40mins.Don't you just love Brent council.
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it would take at least 40mins. Don't you just love Brent council.
Is it not possible to get a dispensation Sir?
MD
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I do hope so. If not I will dream up some swear-filter evaders for screaming and kicking purposes here.
I doubt you require any assistance Sir, but should you fall short I will be happy to oblige.
Yours....MD
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The most ludicrous thing was that I was working on behalf of Brent council,I had a contractors permit from Brent council,and I still had no option other than to pay.Isn't local government wonderful?Incidentally I missed moving the van by a few minutes one day and had to pay a £40 fine for that as well!On more than one occasion there were wardens hanging around the van waiting for the ticket to expire,my own fault I suppose for giving them a taste of blood with the first ticket.
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without all that accelerating and decelerating .........
I treat the few speed bumps that I come across as meaning that I should moderate my speed over that stretch of road and not just over the speed bump itself! I don't do any more accelerating and decelerating than I would normally in a built-up area.
Edited by L'escargot on 16/05/2009 at 08:20
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It would be fine if speed cushions etc were designed with this in mind, but they aren't
There are some horrors in Ivinghoe, Bucks - cushions that can be taken at speed by those who aren't concerned with tyre wear, and are therefore ineffective against the ignorant, but are so high that one-wheel-on-one-wheel-off has to be conducted at 5mph over the worst of them (they are also the most inconsistent set in height and profile I have ever come across). How the residents put up with them I can't understand.
There are a couple of pairs that can be avoided almost completely by driving plumb down the middle of the road, on a bend, which many people do. Nice one Bucks CC.
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Bucks CC seem to do the most stupid things.......
my normal way with speed bumps is to take the road slowly, gently braking before them, then just giving enough gas to extend the front springs as impact takes place, but not so much as to make my wheels/tyres end up square.......
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There's a road near me which has speed cushions which my Renault 4 can straddle comfortably. It's not the widest car in the world !
Pointless.
Ted
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Don't complain about it ted, or someone may change them.
Although expensive, pointless and of course dangerous, speed cushions that can be avoided altogether are the best ones.
I wish a sort of pro-motorist Nader type (if you can get your head round the idea) would institute a hugely expensive class action against central government and a comprehensive list of local authorities based on thousands of bills for lower suspension arms and the like, resulting in retrospective payouts and damages to hundreds of thousands of urban motorists, with interest going back ten years or however long these vile things have beeen around. I have a feeling though you would need American courts, and lawyers, for that.
I don't have patience with the things or sympathy with people's selfish wish to preserve their own cars' suspension rubbers at the cost of everyone else's progress. They are to be hammered over as fast as possible short of actual grounding and damage. Of course some people are better at this than others. But we would all be better off without the bumps, or about nine tenths of them, financially and in quality of life. There's no reason to suppose there would have been an accident bloodbath either. There are other ways of encouraging safe driving than this malevolent rubbish.
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Different cars deal with them, well, differently. My Espace was immune to them ( when it was going ) It just treated them as if they were not there. My Mondeo sort of lollops over them. The Signum crashed and creaked painfully over them and the Ka can get big air if you hit them fast enough........
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I sincerely feel sorry for you Lud ... I used to be a nutter on the roads of London, but took the decision to escape to Cornwall (via Tenerife) back in 87 and now drive everywhere like a mimser - quite contentedly!
Speed humps are ok - if one keeps to the speed limit - they are there for a purpose!
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they are there for a purpose!
They are there for several purposes, all malevolent and harmful. They are supposed to promote safety but actually do the opposite, by constituting a distraction, damaging cars in the safety-related area of suspension, causing extra pollution, costing money that could be better spent on other things and getting everyone in an evil humour.
There may be a few places where these things are a good idea. I can't think of any, but they may exist. In at least nine tenths of cases though they are there just because local authorities are half-witted, arrogant, corrupt and essentially ill-intentioned towards the voters. Speed bumps are a sort of default response to any blather about road safety, and they line the pockets of undeserving contractor chappies who in most cases will have cosy relations with councillors...
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As my post on Wednesday stated - I loathe speed humps as any 'right minded' person would ... maybe in some areas there are far too many of the damn things to be conducive to health (mental) but without them - life becomes intolerable for many and the rat run becomes a race track.
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Speed bumps get top priority in our area.
Where they have been gouged by car suspensions and sumps, the council makes every effort of restoration - of the bumps themselves.
Cynical or what?
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When walking my dog at 6-30 in the morning, I have seen nutters hit speed humps at such a speed that they have lost control of their car - *That* could explain the deep gouges in the humps, the exhaust parts at the roadside + the odd number plate here and there.
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walking my dog
perro y su perro...
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perro y su perro... <<
mue bien amigo!
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Went along that end of Westbourne Park Road again today. The resurfacing is done and the speed bumps are back. Well, uneroded new ones good for a steady 20mph in my car, unnecessarily slow of course for the road.
I promised to invent some swear-filter avoiders for kicking and screaming purposes. Well, I can't. I will resort to quoting my favourite aunt, long dead now alas, who would cry in a husky but ladylike Mediterranean voice, and with wildly flashing eyes:
'Hell's bells and buckets of blood!'
Edited by Lud on 19/05/2009 at 20:03
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