The Government plans to remove speed humps to improve air quality that has been attacked by road safety campaigners. Road safety campaigners labeled the proposal to exclude speed humps from UK roads as daft and irresponsible. Air quality plan highlighted the requirement for councils to reduce overcrowding in urban areas to cut back pollution levels last month. As a result, the suggestion put forward the Government that includes removing speed humps in congestion zones. Hence, traffic flow could be improved a lot.
The reason behind this suggestion is that speed bumps cause drivers to accelerate and brake often, which leads to higher emissions levels in the urban areas. However, these plans are agonist by the road safety campaigners who believe that it will lead to more accidents. Here, you can see pros and cons of the speed bump to conclude a solution for this issue.
Reasons for keeping speed bumps:
Speed humps are essential to road safety because they prevent drivers from speeding, especially in school and hospital zones. The Government uses radar speed signs here and there to inform drivers where to slow down vehicles and where to go faster. It makes the driver navigate the vehicle accordingly. The radar speed display works more quickly to slow traffic and increase the road safety of both pedestrians and drivers.
You can notice speed signs before and after every speed bumps so that it help drivers slow down the automobiles. When there are no speed bumps, possibly no speed radar and it prone to more accidents. It is an effective and affordable tool to slow down drivers. A study has shown that radar signs produce 10 to 20 percent reductions in average roadway speed with an increase in compliance with posted speed limit.
With this, you can also display static message signs, VMS signs (variable message signs), and radar sign trailers. These signs feature high brightness LEDs that inform drivers about real-time traffic conditions and specific temporary events. Radar signs can give temporary or permanent traffic speed reduction for city streets and highways, industrial workplaces, school zones, and work zones.
On the other hand, it is frightened that if councils removed speed humps without installing other necessary measures to slow down drivers. Even though these radar signs are available, but without speed bumps, it surely makes the driver go much faster. This will eventually increase accidents, so speed bumps are unavoidable in road safety.
Why speed bumps should go:
NICE suggested removing speed bumps in its earlier report. They are also introducing more variable speed limits and developing no idling zones for cars to improve traffic flow. The report also highlighted that reducing stop and go driving will surely reduce congestion as well as pollution on roads. It encourages the council to consider this way to smooth out driving habits.
There is also evidence that shown speed humps have increased vehicle emissions, but it is not at all examining larger transport networks. Even health experts believe that removing speed bumps can hugely reduce road traffic. As a result, more than 64% of air pollution in urban areas minimized. In the UK, air pollution and its impact also cost people up to 18.65 billion Euros in a year.
In the report, they also suggested an alternative way to slow down drivers. That is the introduction of 20mph speed zones in areas along with stop-start traffic whereas real-time 50mph variable speed limit should bring in on congested areas to encourage free-flowing traffic. The Government said that any changes in the road layout are to improve air quality that would not affect road safety.
