Safe Speed Forums

I've just found this link on a biker forum.


Yeah right - a strip of wet metal across the road is going to be safe for bikes? I don't think so.

I'm going to try to find out a little bit more about this...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

It'd be an awful lot cheaper to simply fine us 5ccs of petrol every time we pass the point.

Do these idiots not understand the fundamental laws of physics?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Am I missing something here???

Aside from the obvious pitfalls for motorcycles when wet, is the picture actually showing what is effectively just a lump of metal in the road as far as the approaching vehicle is concerned (ie, the ramp is the wrong way around for the direction of travel).

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

edited

did someone say CYCLISTS? Safe for cars indeed. F*cking idiots the lot of them.

I've looked at it a bit more and it's theft. No more and no less. They want to steal the petrol it takes to make the vehicle climb the ramp.

I found this diagram:
http://www.hughesresearch.co.uk/Picture ... _Thumb.jpg

The nearest case I can remember was some bloke at Crystal Palace stealing enough power from the TV transmitter to heat his hot water. He had a tuned coil of copper pipe in his loft... I'm pretty sure he was convicted of theft.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Looking at your diagram Paul (or the one you linked to at least), can you even begin to imagine how a motorcycle is going to react to the undulation of the up & down movement as it passes over the ramp?

Forget whether it is wet or dry, do these cretins not realise the bike is going to wobble all over the show with the very possible consequence of chucking the rider off.


Wait a minute......riding trials bikes for many years has taught me how to fall off...and I am getting a bit skint these days.

Where dId you say I could find one of these contraptions again?

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Just think - With several million of these devices all around the road network we could generate enough free electricity to power all the life-support machines required for the cyclists and motorcyclists that have tried to drive over them.

Thank you pseudo-science; Is there any problem you cannot solve?

I have sent Mr. Hughes an email voicing my concerns about the possible safety implications. So has Nos4r2. MAG are also getting involved I think. I recon his inbox might be getting a little clogged up in the very near future...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

The rediculous thing is that they are claiming that its 'free electicity'. Erm, no its not. You cannot generate electricity from NOTHING. Its called PHYSICS. Ok you could argue that its harnessing 'wasted energy' as I would imagine that a vehicle would be at zero throttle as it passes over the unit, but you're still going to have to accelerate and burn more fuel to get back to the speed you were at before you came across it.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I agree, simple physics says that in order to get something out you must put something in, so they are going to be robbing motorists to run their traffic lights when we already pay for them by other means.

And how much each How long before they get that cost back?

I certainly wouldn't ride a bike over one wet or dry.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

I don't think that government, local or central, has ever lost much sleep over robbing motorists.


According to the website, £25,000 each. I'd guess that they'd never get the cost back... £25K buys one hell of a lot of electricity - enough to run a set of traffic lights for about a thousand years...

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Not if you are going down hill, then its energy recovery...........

Oh that is unless you are driving a hybrid......then its theft.

The whole thing is just daft. The installation and maintanance costs will far exceed the cost benefits. Solar power is much better.

I think it is a con. He said that 200 local authorities have showed an interest (I didn't know there were that many), then he said "He recently approached councils across the country with the final patented project". Sounds like a lot of BS to me.

I wonder who stumped up the £1M ?

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Speed camera policy Kills

There's a massive difference between "showing an interest" and placing an order. As Pogo said £25K buys an awful lot of electricity. The only possible justification would be a remote location that was too expensive to run in a mains supply. The problem then would be that there is a big difference between Kilowatts and Kilowatt Hours. This contraption might well develop 10KW but it only does it for a couple of seconds at a time and in a remote location there probably would not be enough traffic.

Sixy_the_red, I can't pull up the website, could you send me his e-mail address, I'll add to the list to the list of complaints with a link to the HSE website regarding slips !!

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Hmmm that is a very interesting idea! I can't think of any practical use for it though, as pointed out the energy has to come from somewhere, but still very interesting.

The only way these could be environmentally friendly is if they were smaller and designed for cyclists.

Unless of course you put one on it's side and stuck it in the sea.

Traffic lights would be better powered by solar panels and/or small wind turbines, makes much more sense.

Here's an idea, how about these instead of road humps?

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Andrew.

Especially if you change the lights from incandescent bulbs to LED arrays, with the consequential reduction in power demands.

I bet that for £25K you could easily replace the lights with LEDs, add in a battery with solar and wind charging, and still have change.

Oh wait, this is the UK where everything costs 10X as much as it should....

You could even afford to have a handful of LED's go out on you and still wouldn't have to change the array either.

Wait a minute, what am I saying.....

Average life expectancy of an LED is 100,000 hours, that means that the traffic light engineer would spend 34 years of his working life sitting on his arse.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Well that's interesting - he obiously hasn't paid his ISP. His website's diappeared So I'm afraid I can't give you the e-mail adress SE. Sorry, but my web-based e-mail service doesn't store sent messages

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Check all of the options, I have yet to come across any of the popular ones who don't allow you to store sent messages.

Who is the provider?

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?