The following article was published in June 2003.

Cutting Excessive Speed and Warning of Road Hazards

Much emphasis has recently been placed on reducing vehicle speeds on British roads. So for example, over 3 million speeding tickets are likely to be issued this year, and speed humps have been sprouting everywhere. And yet these expensive programmes have had negligible effect on road accident statistics. All that has happened is that an army of people (police, court staff, and the manufacturers and installers of speed cameras and road humps) have been deployed to achieve very little.

At present we have a regime where minor infringements of speed limits result in severe punishment, as if we were all naughty children who needed severe disciplining. In the case of speed humps, we are actually chastised with corporal punishment, when it has long been abandoned in our courts and schools.

However, it is still recognised that reducing vehicle speeds at known danger spots would clearly be advantageous. How to achieve changes in driver habits, or warn drivers of temporary oversights, at an economical cost and without unnecessarily criminalising large swathes of the population is the issue. Perhaps education is a better approach?

Well recently the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) have reported on the use of electronic warning signs. These can warn drivers of excessive speed, or alternatively be used to indicate that dangerous bends or junctions are coming up. You may have seen some already in Bromley or other London boroughs and more extensive use is anticipated. Examples are shown below.  

The picture above shows a sign that lights up to display a vehicles speed when it is above a certain level (yes the van was actually doing 38 mph on Leesons Hill, Orpington before braking).

Now the really interesting thing about this report is that it conclusively shows that these devices are not just effective at slowing down drivers, but that they are also much better than speed cameras at reducing accidents. At the sites studied, where these devices have been installed over a number of years, average speeds were reduced by 4 mph, and by 7 mph for junction and bend warnings. Accidents were reduced by one third!  

Another major advantage was that the effects did not seem to wear off over time, and the initial installation cost and running costs are a fraction of those for speed cameras. These devices can also be used as a good alternative to speed humps on minor roads.

(Editors Comments: Clearly a major improvement over the use of speed cameras and road humps with much greater acceptability to the general public. Bromley council staff are to be congratulated on pioneering these devices in the London area.)

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