Safe Speed Forums

A few months ago the dreaded speed survey was being carried out in village of Sutton on my journey to work through rural Cambridgshire. Then a few weeks ago a lovely new chicane appeared at the A141 end of the village.

Result: races, near head-ons, horns blaring (on occasion) and queues that extend back and risk blocking the roundabout from the main road and hence causing SERIOUS problems elsewhere.

Are the people who design and install these incedibly stupid devices ever encouraged to re-visit the sites and see the chaos and danger they have unleashed.

Where I used to live they built four in one day (two pair of 'chicken' inducing acceleration zones). One was opposite a junction and the exiting traffic turning left from it met traffic on thier side of the road negotiating the obstacle!! That was moved quite quickly but HOW did it get put there in the first place?

After a head-on at the second pair I noticed recently one of those has been removed too. Common sense prevails eventually???????????? I fear not generally speaking.

I feel depressed that there seems to be an idiot in charge of the roads where ever I live!

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Enjoying the twilight years of personal freedom in the UK (and my M3) :)

Why should they remove it? They appear to be a great way of educating stupid "get out of my way" drivers not to be, er, so stupid; especially if they have do deal with six months of protracted conflabulation with their insurance company after a little shunt caused by their ridiculous driving.

I bet the two that had the head on are a bit more careful these days.

All good I say if it knocks the cockyness out of those who like to play chicken.

And if someone is killed as a result of this mis-engineering, all the better. Thatr'll really teach 'em to slow down.

Sorry mods but You Twat.

In common with any feature designed to reduce injury there will always be exceptions. Airbags and seatbelts kill people for instance, so do motorcycle helmets and saftey glass, and I've no doubt that somebody has been killed plowing into a speed camera pole before now, but in general they increase safety.

Same with chicanes.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tpm/tal ... ge=2#a1006

I would say the horns blaring .. the engineered congestion und problems extending to other main roads seem to suggest this not a well engineered set up.

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yup....

near junctions...... approaching blind crests.... on bends.

the one approaching a crest near here wouldn't be so bad if the priorities were reversed, but as it is the traffic that is giving way is oftent starting from stationary and is half way through manouvering through the chicane when a car with priority appears over the brow

mind you i'd prefer better road design to reduce traffic speed than speed bumps.... chicanes are a cheaper halfway house i guess.

I'd prefer no humps or chicanes, just a nice piece of straight road with an average speed camera on it will do for me. Bliss, straight roads, no humps with people not going at it like it's a racetrack.

The tiny minirity that would still do so in the presence of a speed camera would probably would do the same whether there were humps or chicanes anyway.

Instead you'd get people constantly staring at their speedo afraid that it might ever reach 31mph. It's bad enough when they do this on motorway roadworks, but in an urban setting where there are pedestrians and cyclists around it would be deadly. They'd still be doing 30mph the moment they hit you, as opposed to making any effort to slow down or avoid a collision.

Bit more assesment of how to drive a car and monitor it's speed as part of learning and the driving test and bob's your uncle.

Anyway, 20 mph limit as well, only a numpty needs to look at their speedo to not break that.

Great, I could go REALLY FAST for most of the distance and then stop for a bit to get the average down.


This is competely wrong. If anything, you will need to refer to your speedo more often at 20mph. Best not concern yourself with speed. Best look where you are going first.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

*comical "Whaaaaat?"* - you think the slower the limit the easier it is to not break it? Are you backwards? The logic is completely messed up.

I think someone is trying to wind you (us) up.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
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Well, sadly you're the sort of reason why councils defer to physical barriers.

Most people won't do that of course, it'll be easier just to not exceed the limit.

Weepy ---take note

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Not ridden a big motorbike have you?

As for chicanes generally, they have their place especially on sprawling estates which suffer from rat runs. And I'd sooner have chicanes that speed humps. They seem to get on with them just fine over the Channel where lots of villages on faster roads have them. They do have a place but as per usual our councils all too often just bung 'em any old place.

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

How about this for a replacement to a chicane?

It's like a chicane, except it can be moved from place to place and has an on-board combustion engine and tyres. It can sit 5 people who can be trained to educate bad or inexperienced drivers and apply appropriate sanctions to drivers who don't get the message. It can even out run a rat runner .

It also has 1001 other uses and is guaranteed to make the roads a safer place .

Does it get weepej's approval or should we continue with humps, chicanes and cameras. all of which kill more people than they save (traffic calming delays ambulances).?

No the the two former, yes to the latter.

Less physical obstacles, more cameras so that the people who would choose to keep their foot down in the absence of physical obstacles with no other method of enforcement get prosectuted and hounded until they stop acting like arses.

I'm all for more road police, but I don't really want them standing on every street watching people drive their cars.

Why not?

After all, somebody such as yourself who never exceeds the limit by even as much as 1mph would never be troubled by the police no matter how many of them were stood on street corners.

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

Cos it would cost a fortune, would be a total waste of a highly trained public servant who franky could be doing better things with their time.