They’re called speed bumps, but what they really are is performance art for councils who want to look like they’re doing something about speeding, without upsetting the Range Rover crowd on the school run.
I’m talking, of course, about those utterly pointless, half-hearted humps – the ones that don’t go all the way across the road, but instead sit there like abandoned Toblerones, neatly spaced so that any vehicle wider than a wheelbarrow can just straddle them.
These bumps – more accurately “bumps-for-bikes-and-hopes” – are supposed to calm traffic. What they actually do is make every white van man and Audi driver feel like Lewis Hamilton taking Eau Rouge at full tilt. You don’t slow down for them – you aim for them. A bit of a wiggle of the steering wheel and boom – clean through the middle, suspension untouched, smugness intact.
It’s traffic-calming in theory only – like painting zebra stripes on a motorway and calling it a wildlife crossing.
Now, if you're a cyclist, you're less lucky. These strategically useless nubbins of tarmac are perfectly designed to knock your fillings out. And motorcyclists? It’s a game of Russian roulette in slow motion. Either you line up just right and float through the gap like a seasoned stunt rider, or you clip one and perform an impromptu interpretive dance over your handlebars in front of a bemused pensioner walking a cockapoo.
And yet, councils keep installing them. Why? Because they’re cheaper than full-width humps, and crucially, they come with a bonus: they give councillors something to point to in leaflets. “We’ve tackled speeding in your area!” they trumpet. Yes – like a narcoleptic mallard tackles a Boeing 747.
These not-quite-there speed bumps are the civic equivalent of a motivational poster: all image, no impact. They’re the placebo of urban planning. They slow down exactly no one, they irritate everyone, and they’ve turned our roads into a bizarre game of hopscotch for heavy goods vehicles.
Want to actually calm traffic? Try speed cameras. Try full-width humps. Try a giant cardboard cutout of a police officer holding a hairdryer – it’s more effective, and cheaper. But please, for the love of sanity, stop installing these half-arsed lumps of asphalt that only serve to annoy cyclists, confuse tourists, and let every white van barrel through like it’s the last lap of a demolition derby.
Because if this is what passes for road safety strategy, then it’s not just the bumps that are poorly connected – it’s the thinking behind them.
1 comment:
They are 'cushions' and placed only on a few strategic roads to allow ambulances to get from their 'shout' to the hospital without slowing down too much or shaking their passenger to death. I only know this because I live near a hospital and they're everywhere. I, too, drive through the middle when I can.
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