|
DRIVERS DEMAND DANGEROUS SPEED HUMPS BE DUMPED
The Association of British Drivers has renewed its call for all speed humps to be removed from British roads after a speed hump caused a serious accident.
According to a report in the Manchester Evening News a police Transit van, responding to a 999 call, lost control upon hitting a speed hump in Ashby Close, Bolton, causing it to become airborne.
The van then hit an oncoming car, and crashed into a garden where it hit six people who were standing in the garden, including an 8 year old boy.
ABD Spokesman Nigel Humphries said "It is only by some miracle that no-one was killed here. We get to get away from the simplistic notion that speed humps make roads safer, they do not, they often make them more dangerous."
The ABD has compiled a comprehensive list of problems associated with speed humps, and some forward thinking local authorities such as the London Borough of Barnet have already begun removing them.
Yet in other areas they are still being installed with no thought whatsoever for the consequences.
ABD Chairman Brian Gregory added: "Speed humps are nothing more than inverted pot holes, they are a danger to all road users. As long ago as the early 70's a woman cyclist was killed in Swindon when a speed hump caused her to fall and be hit by a vehicle --- that speed hump was subsequently removed. Yet when the government thought people had forgotten about this tragedy, they started installing them again."
Manchester Evening News report: Here
ABD - What they don't want you to know about speed humps: Here
"Between 1972 and 1975 I was a senior police officer in Swindon, Wiltshire. During that time, the town's road safety officer had a speed hump installed at a multi-road junction outside the fire station. Within a few days, a woman cyclist rode out of the fire station, turned left and struck the hump at an angle. She lost her balance and was killed by a motor vehicle. The accident was wholly attributed to the speed hump, which was removed very soon afterwards."
- L.S., Chingford, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, 18 Mar 2006
|
