30 kmh Speed Limit

Indeed John, I do know exactly what you mean. Where traffic calming measures are ineffective it is primarily because they have been badly designed. Our village has a shining example of this in that at great expense they built a chicane on one of the roads where the sports field and associated car park are on opposite sides of the road. Clearly the person that designed it did not know what they were doing as the chicane offset is insufficient tp prevent a vehicle straight lining it through the middle, and that of course is exactly what the majority do. A classic case of a considerable waste of public money. They had the space to do it properly but failed miserably to do so.

The best traffic calming measure of all is a set of traffic lights programmed to revert to ‘all red’ when there is no traffic, backed up with automatic enforcement cameras. Yes it is expensive, but it does definitely work.

Good speed limit anecdote…

A friend’s son passed his test - she went out in the car with him and within a few minutes was gripping the seat, ashen faced and white knuckled.

“WTF! Stop driving so fast?”, she yelled.

“It’s 90 kph” he replied.

“That’s the speed LIMIT” she said. “We are going round a f***ing bend!!!”

“Oh” was the reply, “I thought I had to do 90.”

I thought this was a one off but relayed the story to another friend and he told me his son had done the same and basically ‘Dukes of Hazarded’ it around the town centre. It being 50 and all…

2 Likes

Hi Peter, I think you may find that Fontainebleu beat Bégles to one of the first to limit the speed to 30km around 2010 /12. I’d like to see more communes doing the same. When I was last in Bégles & Mérignac I had trouble getting over 30kms except on the outskirts & most of those had road works.
Tip for anyone having to sleep in a hotel in those areas take a mosquito net.

I live in on the edge of a commune bigger than the average village but not quite a town, on a road between two bigger towns, along which articulated lorries regularly travel, often through the night. There is a 30 zone around schools in the middle, but no speed signs either end of the commune. Where I live, although sparsely populated, is well within the boundaries and has streetlights. The centre of the commune has bends and several roads meet there so traffic has to slow. But coming out of the centre, drivers see a lovely long straight run up an incline, so they put their foot down, and by the time they go past my house are accelerating and doing a lot more than 50kmh.
Several residents have formed a group to gather local opinion with which to approach the Maire to ask for speed signs, which every other tiny village along this road has.
Before anyone asks why I bought the house, I didn’t realise the road was so busy or fast when I viewed the house because I didn’t spend much time in the garden at the time and wasn’t there at 2am when container lorries are speeding past.
The noise is considerable and the aggression palpable when vehicles are speeding past one’s house. I have to keep the windows closed. The difference when the few drivers who do remember they’re supposed to be only doing 50 is considerable. I can’t see why we have to go cap in hand to ask for a simple implementation of what is the law. But apparently we do.

Sounds like an ideal stretch of road to put speed bumps Jackie ?

It would be…but they still have to be approved which seems to
be the hurdle. Though some have said they’d make the noise worse
as vehicles drive over them - there are also a lot of heavy farm
vehicles which don’t go very fast but do make a lot of
noise…someone else said they have a car with a low chassis so if
there were speed bumps they wouldn’t be able to use the road…

1 Like

So the lorries can make more noise?

1 Like

Noise doesn’t usually kill…

Why do you think electric cars will have built-in noises ?

Kills your sleep and that can have consequences.

1 Like

Because someone decided it but based on what? The driver would have to want to kill someone or they would simply stop. No more dangerous than a car is now, remember this noise is at low speed only and EV’s do make a sound when accelerating just as ICE cars do, coasting, engine running, neither make very much noise.

My point is that I would prefer a road is safer hopefully with traffic calming measures like speed bumps even if lorries are noisier as a result. It would be a small price to pay if it saves lives imo.

Clearly never lived beside a speed hump? We suffered fractured drains, loosened glazing and broken sleep and that is before you consider the increase in particulates and plain smell as vehicles brake and change down before accelerating again. The worst of all results and those that want to just hammer over them.

Don’t worry though there will be automatically controlled speed of vehicles in the EU very soon. That should end these topics.

That’s a relief then…

I think there is to be an over-ride button… :upside_down_face::wink::thinking: just saying…

Ta little teaser :joy: