Whilst talking to Keith Rose yesterday, he mentioned that he can't take his LM500 to his favourite restaurant anymore because they have put in speed
bumps. This got me thinking. Most of us pay a full year's road tax, the cars are fully insured and MOT'd but there are many no go areas in this country
because of those awful speed bumps. Surely, it is against our human rights not to be able to drive ANYWHERE on our raods that we want to, without damaging our
cars? This does not only apply to Marcos cars, but to every marque with low clearance.
Why don't we start a national campaign to get rid of these bumps on a human rights issue? If everyone with a sportscar paid into a fighting fund and then
we hired a barrister to argue a test case, if we won it would sound the deathknell for those dreaded bumps.
If criminals and illegal immigrants can use the human rights bill, why can't law abiding individuals?
Speed bumps and our human rights
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 brian coleman |
Speed bumps and our human rights |
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Posts: 232 Mon, 13-Jul-2009 06:32 Apprentice mechanic |
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purplehaze |
Speed bumps | #1 | ||
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Posts: 18 Mon, 13-Jul-2009 07:47 |
Absolutely.
I managed to get to the engineers before they installed the bumps in our road and they did listen and asked me to bring the car down and check it out when they were building the first one as they could adjust the design. As it happens there is no problem. I said I had a road legal car and should be able to drive it anywhere. He said he was building road legal bumps! |
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OldNoccer |
#2 | |||
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Posts: 673 Mon, 13-Jul-2009 08:14 |
I would start by trying to identify if there is a standard form (length, height and ramp angle) - because you may be able to tackle local hump problem if they
are supposed to adhere to a standard. For a broader campaign I would go to one of the sports car magazines to get some leverage (assuming they haven't
already tried it).
I didn't hear anyone got grounded by the humps going into Cosford, and the LM600 made it in, on the other hand I bashed my sump on a short sharp bump on the way into the Severn Valley railway car park when I nipped down there for lunch (Mike Gardner - I will see you at Curborough for a word !). The other thing you could campaign for is mandatory signs for "alternative route avoiding speed humps", as it is really annoying to find your self trapped by them. It doesn't cause traffic calming - it makes me want to leave big black rubber streaks. Even if the ramps allow clearance I find I still have to ease it over or the front spring compression makes the sump hit. Steve
There's a lot of talk these days about green transport. Well, I am ahead of the game, I already have green transport ... British racing green.
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 Mike009 Gardner |
#3 | |||
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Posts: 347 Mon, 13-Jul-2009 12:40 Junior mechanic |
There is a statutory height for speed humps but can`t quote it off the top of my head . Speak to your local Highways Agency
or try a Google search , most things seem to be on there. The battle of the "humps" has been raging for some years and many local authorities allow contractors to lay illigal ones that do not confirm to standards. If you find any that do not conform , report it and the authorities are legally obliged to have them removed. I like the "human rights " approach though , everyone else seems to get away with that one ! There are far better forms of traffic calming available and are used to great effect in other countries and do not knacker your cars suspension, tyres, sumps etc., but whilst we have a succession of car hating governments this absurd legislation will continue. Why do you thank there are so many Urban Tractors on the road, it may be a pointless fashion statement but they curtainly straddle and clear speed humps. They cause problems to ambulances etc , plus noise polution to nearby residents when lorries crash over them , plus massive increase in polution due to cars slowing and accelerating thus increasing emitions. I read only the other day that someone had researched and determined that all the speed humps in Britain contibuted to a carbon footprint equivalent to all of Fiji or some such place. Not sure how they worked all that out though ! |
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marcos3lv6 |
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Posts: 22 Mon, 13-Jul-2009 15:45 |
These two pages seem to give a good overview of the dreaded Bumps.
AS usual Government is Always Right and you must not Challenge them. (Elections Soon !) http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Humps.htm http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Legal_basis_of_traffic_calming.htm I find the Cushions are the Worst. Richard |
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brian coleman |
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Posts: 233 Mon, 13-Jul-2009 16:34 Apprentice mechanic |
I have been told that the legal height is 75mm (3 inches) but I only have 50mm clearance between my sump and the road. As with purplehaze, my car is road legal
but will still not clear these "legal" 75mm humps. In our road we have cushion bumps plus the large flat ones. The large ones are OK, but with the
cushion bumps, I have to straddle two humps so that the sump goes between. This means I am forced into the centre of the road, which can be scary when there is
oncoming traffic and impatient morons behind.
The cushion bumps are useless - joy riders and chasing police place their wheels between them and travel at over 40mph down our street! I have tried it in my van and can easily do 45mph. As for motorcycles................ But it's not just about local streets, it's about being able use all roads without damaging our cars. |
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britara |
more speed bumps ! | #6 | ||
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Posts: 10 Mon, 11-Jan-2010 19:45 |
Saw this article which just goes to show that there is no limit to the march of these dreaded things !
December 23, 2009They can't grit, but they can speed bumpBravo Islington Council: it can't grit and clear the roads and pavement but it can install a speed bump. http://blogs.thisismoney....553ef01287678af6f970c-pi
href="http://blogs.thisismoney.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef01287678af6f970c-pi"> Islington Council has decided, after holding and then ignoring a consultation in which a majority of 68% voted against installing speed bumps, to put the dreaded humps in my road anyway. My thoughts on this abuse of democracy are for another day, but to put the icing on the cake, Islington has managed to clearly demonstrate how so many of our councils get everything so badly the wrong way round. Having failed to bother gritting the pavements or side streets before Saturday night / Sunday morning's widely forecast snow, or clearing them afterwards, the roads around me resemble an ice skating rink. Despite this, on Monday morning, a hardy bunch of workmen arrived in our street to install the speed bumps. They cleared just enough room to put the bumps in, leaving the rest of the street and pavement covered in sheet ice with a touch of snow. Done for the day they left, and on Monday night it snowed again. And so on Tuesday morning, the workmen arrived again, cleared the space just around the bumps once more and finished them off. It doesn't need saying that on Wednesday lunchtime, the rest of the road and pavement remain covered in ice. I definitely don't blame the workmen for this - I blame the council, which obviously failed to grasp the initiative of asking its staff to diversify slightly. Now I know that in its defence the council would say we have different teams who do speed bumps and gritting, but doesn't that picture pretty much sum up the infuriating bits about modern day Britain. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/biog_simon_lambert href="http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/biog_simon_lambert">- Simon Lambert, assistant editor, This is Money |
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