Safe Speed Forums

In their infinite wisdom, Aberdeenshire Council have (almost) installed two sets of tank traps - sorry, traffic islands on a main road through my home town of Ellon. The road is called Riverside Drive.....

Since installing about 3 weeks ago there have been 4 cars involved in 3 crashes actually on these structures.

The council have built the holes, moved the pavement, kerbed the islands in and left them with a keep left sign on each side.


The latest crash was just the other night. I was approaching the tank trap when another car travelling at around 30ish by my reckoning (40 zone) ran straight over the island, ripping off the front bumper and tearing the offside front wishbone clean out of the subframe and shattering the bellhousing, meaning the engine and gearbox fell out of the car as it slewed across my path, stopping about 20ft past the obstacle on the wrong side of the road. I stopped just short of her (wide eyed ) and parked on the pavement with hazards etc.

The young girl driving had had a face full of airbag and the seat back was broken. She was also about 6 months pregnant.

When the Police and Ambulance turned up I gave the poor copper an ear full, and, surprisingly enough, he agreed wholeheartedly that these unfinished traffic islands had caused 3 crashes in as many weeks and we don't appear to have a need for them anyway.

The Policeman did say that he'd seen the girl around and she seemed to be a bit lead footed Must say she wasn't going that quick when she crashed though

Does anyone else think legal action is in order??


Background info / further details to set the scene

The road is set at a 40mph limit for around 3/4 of a mile from the edge of town, reducing to 30mph (marked by big stone pillar things on the grass verges each side of the road with big lit 30 signs.....).

One of the traffic islands is just inside the 30 zone, near a T-junction and the other right beside a T-junction well inside the 40 zone.

The road is poorly lit (which was fine for the whole 23 years I've lived in this town) and these obstacles are hard to see especially with road salt etc.

There are no houses or gardens accessable from this road, but there are back garden fences set about 20ft back from one side of the road, marking the edge of a housing estate accessed by the second T-junction mentioned above.

The history of the road?
There was a crash about 3 months ago caused by a combination of someone not looking properly pulling out of this junction, and someone else going a bit too fast in the 40 zone, as there is a blind summit on the main road from the junction's perspective about 100yards back.

The road runs east/west (town centre is east) and the islands have both been built on the south side of the white centre lines, meaning that easterly travel is unaffected but westerly traffic must now negotiate a very sharp chicane around these structures, which involved pushing the pavement out of the way.

The chicanes are very short and the kerbs have sharp corners if you follow me?

Various residents of the housing estate came out after this latest smash and starting moaning about these islands, as apparently now the HGVs travelling out of town (west) can't negotiate the obstacle course so simply drive up the kerb and over the grass, bringing them close to the garden fences where these people's children play.

Just after the Police turned up, so did a council van and a little man in yellow ran around putting traffic cones around these bloody things.

Since the last crash, the council have returned and installed steel lamposts in the holes, but not the lit up keep left white plastic things. The lamp post doesn't actually have a lamp yet, so at present they're even more dangerous than they were last week - now having a large steel pole in the middle of the road to hit after ripping the suspension out.

Is it normal practice to install lamposts on small traffic islands?? I don't think I've seen that before, and I think I can imagine why

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Sounds like another case of the council 'using up' whats left of their road budget, in order to preserve it at the same level for next year (if they underspand they get less the following year, so where's the incentive to save public money!?).

Some numpty in town hall has decided that small rountabouts are a good traffic calming measure, and so in they go. I personally think that the only justification for islands is to improve traffic flow, such as on a crossroads where the traffic level on the main road severely hampers those wishing to join/cross from side roads.

I agree with you. If someone wanted to run a council which credited the excess back to the tax payers each year I'd vote for them.

I wouldn't even mind if I got to vote for the money to go somewhere I felt it was needed.

The idea of flaring off excess money just to preserve next year's budget underpins the whole inefficient psyche of the British authority.


Spend, spend, spend isn't so much the problem - it's waste, waste, waste that's actually happening.

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Whilst I agree that the islands are unnecessary, is that really an excuse for crashing straight into the thing, surely your headlights should light up the sign before that happens.

What if it were a broken down car or, a pedestrian?

OTOH, since the HGVs don't even fit past this thing, the definitely should not be there. Perhaps they can do even more of their year end spend in paying to remove them again?

Have noticed that the tendancy on these and the older ones is to remove the lit keep left bollard and fit reflective keep left signs ( with black non reflective backs) back to back.OK-till one gets knocked off- then there is no indication of the obstruction from one direction.(till you find it with your sump or front wheel).So beware if you notice the new ones fitted -