Rural lane traffic slowing advice please.

[slowdownplease]

We live on a long farm track which has for years had huge potholes and has been almost unusable. It has yesterday been repaired at our/neighbours expense and it looks fab!

However now the tractors are going at a ridiculous speed again, whereas they used to crawl along due to the bumps. Has anyone any advice about getting them to slow down? We will be putting speed bumps before and after our house to slow them right there. I would like something to slow them just for the remainder of the lane, so the new road surface doesn't get bounced out in 1 months time and it'll be back to as bad as it was. I am going to speak to the farmer and ask him politely to slow down, but I don't expect him to listen. we also have two signs asking people to slow down, but again these are ignored. It's not just tractors, it's the delivery drivers/postman too.
Any advice welcome! thank you

I feel your pain. We live on a rural, single track lane, albeit Tarmac. Pot holes are the only thing that seem to slow people down. The council repair them frequently, but only do a mediocre job, so they always come back, and I never thought I'd say it, but I'm glad they do!

Private road? Install gates

Thanks for your replies. No it's sadly not private. There are other houses and they are ok with observing the speed; it's the other users that just don't care. Our lane is the middle of the farm and tractors have to use it to access a shed and fields.

I remember as a kid that our neighbours used to put ducks/geese/some other bird can't remember exactly what in the road and vehicles HAD to slow down to avoid hitting them. Is that a mad idea???

They'd just get run over.

Yes I think you are right, I can't remember what happened to the ones from when I was a kid. I'm sure some didn't survive, but I do remember that cars slowed down as a result so that's what I was hoping might happen if we got some. But yes I wouldn't want that to happen, poor ducks. Oh well, I'll have to think of something else.

Hang on. You paid to resurface a council maintained road?

I suspect it is a private road - but who owns it and who has right of access? It sounds like responsibility for maintenance is shared between you and neighbours, but the farmer has some right of access. if the farmer's vehicles are ripping it up then I'd have a word first but with a threat of legal action for repair costs if he doesn't slow down. However if it's been repaired on the cheap and not strong enough for farm vehicle use then you'll be back to a rutted track soon enough which won't worry farm traffic, but may annoy you.

I used to live on a private road, but at least it didn't have heavy farm traffic on it.

I'm fairly sure putting speed bumps on a road you don't own will leave you in a very precarious position legally, you're leaving yourself wide open to be sued for damage to any traffic as well as having to pay to put the road back to it's original condition should someone report it to the council.

It's not council owned. It's owned by the farmer, and he has repaired it at his cost (as in he filled in the the potholes and they bounced out at the first car to go over it) and he got fed up repairing it, so we arranged with his permission to repair it at our cost. He knows that we intend to put speed bumps and is fine with this.