I live in what is described as a village, Hah ! at the end of a road which is situated on the edge of the village. This road has a 40mph limit.
It's not a particularly long road, maybe 300-400m max ? But the end at which I live goes out into a lovely long straight country road. Pure temptation for the twats of this world who like to drive excessively and often stupidly.
So, if traffic is coming into the village via our road, cars, lorries, farm vehicles etc. are often driving well in excess of 40mph before they slow down or on the other hand accelerate out of the village well before the 40mph sign.
We have a builders merchant nearby and an agricutural machinery hire co. too so you can imagine the type of vehicles coming past my house. Huge trucks full of sand, gravel, concrete, mechanical grabbers and other machinery on transporters etc.
They thunder past and even at 40mph I think it's too fast - not to mention the noise.
It's a fairly narrow road with only a pavement on one side the majority of the length of the road.
It's a route used by mums taking their children to the local primary school and a day nursery who uses the road to take the children out in buggies and trolleys for walks.
My questions are:
a) what is the criteria for a 40mph limit
b) how can we campaign for a 30mph (apparantly there have been 3 failed attempts at reducing the limit in the past)
c) who best to contact (local press ?, or is that going too far at first)
I have spoken to our local police who have put me in touch with an organisation called saferoads.org.
I am waiting for a phone call from them but wondered what I could find out before they got in touch.
We have no street lights apart from one lampost opposite an entrance to a close that runs off our road.
A speed sensor was trialled last year but it was put close to the stop junction where traffic has to slow down, consequently they told us that there wasn't an issue with speeding !
I am putting a letter together to give to all the residents asking for letters/ signatures of support.
I am also going to write to the builders merchants and Ag hire co. asking them to make aware their drivers/ customers crappy driving !
As you can tell I am v today. Wouldn't take much for a child to walk out & get hit.
Or am I wasting my time?