Why are the roads in such a bad state ? Maybe an answer here

[RichardA35]

Apart from it's only people who drive like morons that increase emissions between speed humps - it is quite easy to drive a modern car at 20 mph in 3rd gear without revving to the redline. As ever, it's just excuses by people who think their right to drive trumps all else.

Perhaps if roads weren't vandalised in this manner people wouldn't behave like this. 20mph is too slow unless the road is narrower than a full S2.

I recall a video previously posted on here of some poor driving of someone following (nearly tailgating) another driver on a road with some humps in Ipswich. Drivers just need to chill and if needed leave a few more minutes for their journey.

[Berk]

Perhaps if Martin Cassini were right about drivers being competent to choose an appropriate speed for the circumstances, instead of insisting on the "right" to drive at 30mph no matter whether the road conditions are suitable for it, then they wouldn't have to install road humps.

The idea that the width of a road dictates whether 20mph is too slow rather than the risk to other road users of exceeding that limit is symptomatic.

So competent drivers who actually do bother to observe the situation should be kept slower?

20mph is not a suitable limit except on narrow roads. Otherwise it is far too slow.

How unfortunate that the safety of others gets in the way of your commute. I really feel for you.

So let’s see. On a road safety assessment on a trunk road, you would be looking for reasons to keep peds off the main carriageway, including introducing features such as railings so that the road can only be accessed at crossings (not that it makes much difference to people who vault over them.

But a “residential” street (purely due to the type of neighbourhood it passes through, as opposed to an off main road, or cul-de-sac) is seen as a free for all.

How can that be right?? And why is liability always seen from the driver’s perspective?? Are parents usually allowed to let their kids roam free with no consequences??

And why aren’t average speed cameras up to the job?? They would keep unruly drivers off the streets.

It’s actually gotten to the stage where I would prefer a few more cameras if it would mean ripping the damned humps out. I can’t say I’m fond of them, more the lesser of two evils.

Besides which, parked vehicles provide more than adequate traffic calming.

[Berk]

Quite. I see so many drivers who are utterly clueless about driving over humps - slow down to 3mph, speed up to 25, brake sharply to 3, and repeat, instead of easing off and either rolling over or accelerating gently over them, average speed much higher and more pleasant.

I'd understand it if it were the rubber sleeping policemen which they can't lawfully use on public roads.

Indeed, I usually take them about 17 or 18 (the ones close to me are still quite hard after the last resurfacing).

Mind you, as was mentioned up thread, surfacing standards leave a lot to be desired. Not even humps get checked regularly. Before they were surfaced, the humps were the only solid part of the carriageway.

You could see the cracks caused from repeated wear and tear (all that braking hard, slowing down and accelerating hard again).

I can’t even begin to think what the noise levels are like for residents. So much for “calming”.

[Bryn666]

So competent drivers who actually do bother to observe the situation should be kept slower?

20mph is not a suitable limit except on narrow roads. Otherwise it is far too slow.

How unfortunate that the safety of others gets in the way of your commute. I really feel for you.

So let’s see. On a road safety assessment on a trunk road, you would be looking for reasons to keep peds off the main carriageway, including introducing features such as railings so that the road can only be accessed at crossings (not that it makes much difference to people who vault over them.

But a “residential” street (purely due to the type of neighbourhood it passes through, as opposed to an off main road, or cul-de-sac) is seen as a free for all.

How can that be right?? And why is liability always seen from the driver’s perspective?? Are parents usually allowed to let their kids roam free with no consequences??

And why aren’t average speed cameras up to the job?? They would keep unruly drivers off the streets.

It’s actually gotten to the stage where I would prefer a few more cameras if it would mean ripping the damned humps out. I can’t say I’m fond of them, more the lesser of two evils.

Besides which, parked vehicles provide more than adequate traffic calming.

Lots of questions that could be easily answered with a little Googling.

Nowhere in road design standards written this side of 1995 on urban trunk roads (the few that the then HA didn't palm off, that is) have we been corralling pedestrians to single crossing points. The road user hierarchy quite clearly places pedestrians and cyclists at the top, and that means that needless street clutter like guard rails that have no proven safety benefit are removed. This is what has been going on in London since well before the year 2000 with schemes like Trafalgar Square setting the new design expectations quite clearly.

Much like the polluter pays principle, your two tonne steel box does a lot of damage if it hits anyone, so it is incumbent on you to drive in a manner that ensures it does not. If that means doing barely above 10 mph in a residential street so be it.

The road which my four year old son lives on, and is walked to school along, has parked cars and they do NOT provide more than adequate traffic calming, because the inconsiderate ******** you want to excuse just treat it as the Gauntlet from Gladiators and steam through before an oncoming vehicle does the same to them. Several wing mirrors have been pinged off as a result. Am I supposed to say "oh, well, we tried?" to that? I'd gladly have the inconvenience of some humps if it stopped the ******** even though I personally also hate the damn things.

[KeithW]

So let’s see. On a road safety assessment on a trunk road, you would be looking for reasons to keep peds off the main carriageway, including introducing features such as railings so that the road can only be accessed at crossings (not that it makes much difference to people who vault over them.

But a “residential” street (purely due to the type of neighbourhood it passes through, as opposed to an off main road, or cul-de-sac) is seen as a free for all.

How can that be right?? And why is liability always seen from the driver’s perspective?? Are parents usually allowed to let their kids roam free with no consequences??

And why aren’t average speed cameras up to the job?? They would keep unruly drivers off the streets.

It’s actually gotten to the stage where I would prefer a few more cameras if it would mean ripping the damned humps out. I can’t say I’m fond of them, more the lesser of two evils.

Besides which, parked vehicles provide more than adequate traffic calming.

A residential street is intended to give people access to their homes, it is therefore necesssary for people to cross the road on foot. Are you really suggesting I should not be allowed to cross the road to talk to my neighbour except at an officially designated crossing point or that every street in town be equipped with average speed cameras ? There are 2368 off them in my home town. Who is going to pay for all those cameras ? At that how do you work out what the average speed is in all the possible permutations of routes

Oh that's right you want us to pay for them and solve that problem so YOU can drive faster. I will decline that kind offer.

Given that it is NOT designed as a through road for other than local traffic its perfectly appropriate to keep speed down. As for parked vehicles limiting traffic down please take a look at the GSV of the street close to my house.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.52868 ... authuser=0

The kids around here can stlll walk to school or visit their friends and play on the open land at the top of the road. I would like things to stay that way.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.52798 ... authuser=0

[Berk]

That doesn’t appear to be a B-Road, let alone an A-Road, so your position would be correct.

The trouble comes when you have to travel on to the connecting road you need to take.

The strategy appears to consider all roads as residential, whether they are strategic or not. I would suggest it should only apply to cul-de-sacs and streets such as the above which are clearly residential in character.

And believe it or not, people who drive into other people’s cars and rip wing mirrors off do feel the full force of the law. The police aren’t that inept.

Whether the courts fulfil their side of the bargain is open to debate.

[DB617]

The strategy appears to consider all roads as residential, whether they are strategic or not. I would suggest it should only apply to cul-de-sacs and streets such as the above which are clearly residential in character.

This is what's bothering me about the blanket 20mph rollouts in cities. It is most definitely anti-car but also anti-flow of traffic, because the strategic residential roads common to most old UK cities are reduced to exactly the same limit as the tiny back streets with single file traffic with "passing places" made of open parking spaces. It's almost as if nobody in the responsible department has to actually do any thinking, just a dictat from above that 'all roads will be 20'.

I understand how this could be better for the residents of the previously rather less safe and noisier streets, though. But for example no part of the former A48 through Cardiff should be reduced to 20mph, considering that it was once an S3/S4/D2 trunk road bisecting the entire county. The massive reduction in thought being put into drivability in places like Birmingham makes more sense now though, given the announcement of extremely car-hostile policies by the local government there.

Don't get me wrong, city centres are not necessarily a good place for cars, nor should we be dependent on cars to get in and out of them. But we are absolutely dependent on roads for the blue lights, beloved buses and working vehicles, which cannot be somehow magically removed. And they are also forced to thunder over speed bumps and (particularly bad for buses with their massive diesel emissions) stop for traffic narrowings. Plus these 20mph blanket zones are being rolled out into suburbs where cars kind of are still king.

[fras]

Has there ever been any thought given to a "recommended" 20 mph limit zone ? Thus there would be the usual mandatory 30 mph for streets/roads with street lighting, but with a lower recommended limit. There would then be no quibbles about prosecuting for drivers 1 mph over the 30 mph for instance. The lower limits to be accompanied by simple calming measures like chicanes, (no humps !!).

Just a thought.

[Bryn666]

Scotland has them and no one pays the blindest bit of attention to them.

So no.

[KeithW]

The strategy appears to consider all roads as residential, whether they are strategic or not. I would suggest it should only apply to cul-de-sacs and streets such as the above which are clearly residential in character.

This is what's bothering me about the blanket 20mph rollouts in cities. It is most definitely anti-car but also anti-flow of traffic, because the strategic residential roads common to most old UK cities are reduced to exactly the same limit as the tiny back streets with single file traffic with "passing places" made of open parking spaces. It's almost as if nobody in the responsible department has to actually do any thinking, just a dictat from above that 'all roads will be 20'.

I cant speak for anywhere else but none of the roads with 20 mph limits I use are either A or B roads.

At the end of Gunnergate Lane (unclassified) which has a 20 mph limit I turn onto the A172 which is major road through residential area. At that point the speed limit is 30 mph , parking is restricted and a look at GSV should make it obvious why 30 mph is appropriate.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.53045 ... authuser=0

Once you are south of the junction with Stainton Way the speed limit increases to 40 mph. This an area with many side roads which are residential streets. Most of those that are through roads such as the Guisborough Road into Nunthorpe (unclassified) are 30 mph. The Guisborough traffic now takes the NSL bypass

Once you get onto the truly residential streets there is a mixture of 30 mph and 20 mph limits.
Clevegate has a 20 mph limit and some drivers whinge about that but they are usually the ones who missed the sign for the school entrance and the big letters that spell out SLOW
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.52421 ... authuser=0

As to city wide rollouts while much of the ancient central area of Cambridge is 20 mph as the roads are narrow and packed with tourists and shoppers but main routes in and out of the city are largely 30 or 40 mph.

Take the Madingley Road which takes you out towards the A428 and M11.

Here towards the centre its 30 mph, keep heading west and it rises to 40 mph
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.53045 ... authuser=0

At the end of the road before it joins the A428 its 50 which seems reasonable.

By all means oppose inappropriate instances but a simple blanket condemnation is not justified in my opinion. Now in an ideal world variable speed limits in central areas might be useful but it would be tricky and expensive to implement.

[DB617]

I certainly don't condemn 20 limits in areas of significant risk or environmental sensitivity like narrow residential areas et cetera. However I've seen clips from Merseyside and Birmingham of how angry certain drivers get at the wide, long, painful 20 zones when for example a learner driver heads up it at the legal limit. They get overtaken constantly, often dangerously, or tailgated. Either way that is no safer than a 30 limit where most people will follow a car doing the limit. The slowness of 20 makes a certain type of driver lose their mind.

While compliance remains the reserve of the portion of drivers who actually observe or at least pay heed to the limit, extremely low limits are a mixed bag of benefits and big disadvantages. Some kind of actual enforcement of dangerous driving situations and of course the limit itself would be good to see.

We are in an era of unprecedented lawlessness by drivers on city streets due to massively reduced enforcement staffs ie beat and car cops. And we impose more and more restriction on drivers.

[Chris Bertram]

I cant speak for anywhere else but none of the roads with 20 mph limits I use are either A or B roads.

Within a few hundred yards of my house are 20 limits on the *primary* A435, and on B4146, and A435 also has 20 limits through Balsall Heath and Moseley, the latter also affecting B4127. A substantial length of (now non-primary) A441 through Stirchley and Cotteridge is a 20 limit. And those are just the ones near me where "blanket" 20 limits have been applied without much (or is it any?) consideration for the message that the limits send out on roads where they make no sense whatsoever. Keep praying that Middlesbrough council resists the urge to cut every limit in sight.

[ForestChav]

Scotland has them and no one pays the blindest bit of attention to them.

So no.

Quite. Very few pay any attention to the (non-recommended) blanked 20s which Nottm City Council applied to pretty much every non A and B road in its area a while back, which tend to be either self-enforcing in terms of parked cars or the road conditions. which is the side roads mainly, or either artificially slowed via speed cushions or chicanes, which make them self-enforcing anyway, or they are just a silly sign at the side of the road which bears little resemblance to the road design or conditions; which don't really make a lot of sense to me. But then I usually think that you should drive to the conditions irrespective of the speed limit, which often means driving a lot more slowly. In any case, neither the council nor the police enforce any of the 20s, I believe it was actually a condition of them that they wouldn't expect such, which implies the police didn't really agree with them either. It was certainly stated at the time - which effectively gives them the status of a recommended limit.

All pales into insiginficance when compared with the absolute muppet who decided to slow down from 20 to 5 for every single speed cushion this morning, on a ruler-straight road with no oncoming traffic. But then, I tend to traverse the gaps between them where I can these days.

[KeithW]

All pales into insiginficance when compared with the absolute muppet who decided to slow down from 20 to 5 for every single speed cushion this morning, on a ruler-straight road with no oncoming traffic. But then, I tend to traverse the gaps between them where I can these days.

I have had cars where your technique works and others where trying it would have left the exhaust sitting in the middle of the road. I owned a Vauxhall Vectra that this applied to for example. I believe damaging the car by hitting a speed hump too fast is being a muppet.

[Berk]

Braking to 5 (or anything less than 10, really) is excessive unless the humps are very high, and round. I should jump out and take some pictures of the ones at the 24/7 petrol station, they are TOUGH. And very high, and round as well.

The latter sort should be banned on private property as well as public roads, they must do far more damage to vehicles than any good they do keeping people safe.

[Berk]

What I didn’t particularly appreciate last summer was all the massive, full-length speed cushions on the A4095 near Bladon and Long Hanborough. They were getting to be every 200 yards or so.

Now bear in mind there are also GATSO’s in the area, so you do have to ask how much of a problem speeding is round there. If it’s as bad as that, a guided bus-style tank trap probably wouldn’t go amiss.

Or some stinger-type spikes embedded in the road...

[Chris5156]

I cant speak for anywhere else but none of the roads with 20 mph limits I use are either A or B roads.

Within a few hundred yards of my house are 20 limits on the *primary* A435, and on B4146, and A435 also has 20 limits through Balsall Heath and Moseley, the latter also affecting B4127. A substantial length of (now non-primary) A441 through Stirchley and Cotteridge is a 20 limit.

The same applies to several London Boroughs - Islington, Southwark and Tower Hamlets have blanket 20 limits where all A-roads and B-roads operated by the council are subject to 20mph limits, including some seriously egregious ones like this dual carriageway A-road without any frontage access.

[FosseWay]

Something no-one seems to have raised so far is that humps inconvenience precisely those road users who we want to encourage, namely cyclists and bus passengers. Even if you take the view that motorists should just suck it up because they're driving large, dangerous, polluting vehicles - and that's a big if to start with - there really is no justification for inconveniencing cyclists and bus users in this way. Yes, I know hump designs exist that allow cyclists to pass the side of them or buses to straddle them. But there is apparently no requirement for them to be installed to replace existing "dumb humps" and no requirement in the case of cyclists to ensure that the cut-through is physically accessible (not blocked by parked cars) and not full of puncture-causing detritus.

It's too simplistic to say that the driver of a ton of metal must ensure that s/he doesn't hit anyone, and if that means driving at 10 mph, so be it. So a 10 mile bus journey has to take an hour under that logic. The reality is that we *all* have a duty to behave safely on the roads, especially on genuinely all-purpose roads where all users in all modes have an equally justifiable reason to be there. It's a bit different on motorways at one end of the scale and residential roads on housing estates at the other, where there is a clear priority in usership, with in some cases legal prohibitions on non-priority use. On all the roads in between we have to share responsibility. Sure, that means not driving too fast (or dangerously in other ways), but it also means using lights when cycling in the dark and looking where you're going when walking.

The proliferation of humps and blanket 20 limits is not IMV driven purely by a desire to improve road safety, though I appreciate that that is the genuinely intended aim of the authorities that introduce them. In reality they are a half-baked solution arrived at because the authorities shy away from two things that would make most difference: (a) most importantly, getting bad drivers off the road, permanently if necessary, and (b) dinning into people in general that if they screw up, they can take the consequences, regardless of whether they were driving, cycling or walking. If someone walks randomly off the pavement into the path of a car, the resulting accident is their responsibility every bit as much as if a car mounts the pavement and hits a pedestrian, it's the driver's responsibility.

My personal preference is that we classify roads according to who, if any, are the priority users. This classification must be arrived at on the basis of practical analysis of who actually uses the roads and why, and not by some pie-in-the-sky we-want-to-stop-people-driving-but-can't-be-bothered-to-provide-an-alternative doctrine. Roads that are principally used by pedestrians should be designed with them in mind. Humps may form a reasonable part of the arsenal of ensuring that that is the case: anyone who drives there will only do so for a short distance from/to properties on that road, and they will mostly be people who live there. There aren't any buses on such roads, and cyclists probably shouldn't be doing 20 mph along them either, so can live with the humps or chicanes. This class would also include pedestrianised shopping streets, which should be genuinely pedestrianised. It never fails to amaze me that you can get a rollocking for cycling on such streets but every Tom, Dick and Harry can drive and park their lorry there.

Roads that are designed for high-speed motor vehicles are already reasonably well defined, though we should be more proactive in encouraging cyclists not to use the A14 by ensuring there is a *usable* and *practical* alternative route. I'd add into this mix urban ring roads as well as motorways and HQDCs.

That leaves everything in between. First I'd separate off country lanes in tourist areas (National Parks and similar areas) where you get a lot of walkers and horse riders. These users should be able to feel safe using these roads, and I'd have no problem with a considerable speed limit reduction on S1s and narrow S2s in these areas.

Then you've got "normal rural roads" - i.e. S2s with no pavement - and urban roads that are used by more than just people accessing premises. Here we need to rub along together as equals, each following both common sense and the rules of the road. That does not mean restricting motor traffic to very low limits because a pedestrian might run out into the road: the pedestrian has as much duty to behave themself as the driver does. Of course, you should always drive with the possibility in mind that someone may do something unexpected or stupid, but that is very different from forcing people to behave as if that unexpected thing will happen on every metre of a given road.

I go back to the bus passengers now. A frequent argument from the pro-hump lobby is that no single driver is likely to be inconvenienced by humps for more than a small fraction of their journey because they take the most direct route out of their residential area to a main road. But the whole point of buses is that they drive past or through places where people live. It is entirely feasible for a bus to drive 10 or more miles on roads that are all or mostly traffic-calmed and subject to 20 mph limits. The fact that the bus does this means that the roads in question do not really qualify as "pedestrian priority" as defined above: there is clearly through traffic, and its needs must be considered alongside everyone else's.

[Bryn666]

Yes; that one is pretty hard to justify, I doubt it's even a highly used route by non motorised vehicles.

Still when they slam the badly thought out Silvertown Tunnel into that area it'll be fun to watch won't it? Not.

[KeithW]

.

That leaves everything in between. First I'd separate off country lanes in tourist areas (National Parks and similar areas) where you get a lot of walkers and horse riders. These users should be able to feel safe using these roads, and I'd have no problem with a considerable speed limit reduction on S1s and narrow S2s in these areas.

Then you've got "normal rural roads" - i.e. S2s with no pavement - and urban roads that are used by more than just people accessing premises. Here we need to rub along together as equals, each following both common sense and the rules of the road. That does not mean restricting motor traffic to very low limits because a pedestrian might run out into the road: the pedestrian has as much duty to behave themself as the driver does. Of course, you should always drive with the possibility in mind that someone may do something unexpected or stupid, but that is very different from forcing people to behave as if that unexpected thing will happen on every metre of a given road.

Realistically most rural roads have no footpaths and often the only place for a pedestrian to step into is a ditch. Further on country roads you should ALWAYS be expecting something to pop out , its more often a cow, sheep, dog, fox, deer or badger than a pedestrian, most of them dont squeeze under a hedge or pop out of a field in a gap between trees. Animals tend to do this.

As a driver you really had better be ready to avoid a pedestrian or cyclist here which was part of my daily commute, they have nowhere to go.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.12581 ... authuser=0

Yes there are hills in Cambridgeshire

As for traffic calming measures we ended up having to install them in the village where I lived as some drivers simply would not slow down even in obviously risky areas such as the school entrance !
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.15337 ... authuser=0

Or the crossroads in the centre of the village.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.15557 ... authuser=0