Speed cushions have arrived in Welton's town

[Welly]

Our local authority have insisted that speeding is a problem in my area (which it flipping well isn't) and we have been blessed with loads of these...........



Now, I go for the 'straddle' monouvre, whilst others go for the 'one wheel up' approach.

They are a bloody nuisance and will not do my poorly engine mounting any good, or my tryes, suspension joints etc.

The stupid thing is (and practicing what my advanced driving cousin told me) that if you take them at 50MPH in 'straddle' mode you can hardly feel a thing yet go over them at 10 - 20 MPH and the whole car jolts around badly.

Theory has it that a 'properly constructed' DOT speed hump will be barely noticeable taken at 50MPH, I thought I'd try it and it does reduce the impact remarkably. So in effect the new speed cushions have increased my speed

I suppose it will give everyone an excuse to buy a stuffing great 4x4 now

I'm so annoyed, I've even changed my avatar

How do you all get on?

[trem1]

i use the straddle technique as well " ooh er missus"
and i also find the faster the better,if you slow down for the speed cushions it does make it worse so they work well dont they

[ThePrisoner]

How funny are these type of speed bumps, and what a waste of public money.

Our Police Skoda Ocatavia vRS is so low to the ground that the sump guard scraps over the bumps as you drive! The soloution? Easy, we now need to accelerate over the bumps to give the sump just that little bit more clearance.

So in actual fact we accelerate over them instead of slowing down.

Another genius idea by the people in charge.

Pris.

[Playtime_Fontayne]

We have loads round these yurr parts. I can just about manage to straddle them, but someone told me that its better to do the one wheel trick? Something about wear on the inside tyre walls??...but if you straddle it completly that shouldn't happen.

Oi dunno!

[mjb]

I generally find my 406 can completely straddle the things if taken dead-on, so they really do very little apart from push you into driving on the opposite side of the road if there's a parked car blocking your straddle on the correct side... Hey I'm not going to risk damaging my suspension! Even smaller cars seem to have no problem straddling as long as they speed up to 40+.

The problem with taking them slow is that your suspension springs will bounce the car horribly, whereas if you race over them the shocks basically just contract then expand rapidly taking the impact away from the chassis the same way (but in reverse) as if you drive over a small pot-hole...

[turbolag]

There's effing loads of the things round here. I go for the 'straddle', and slow right down to walking pace, as the Mi is quite firmly sprung, which gets the impation g1ts behind me in a lather.

Thing is, only careful drivers make any attempt to slow down for them. the ignorant tw4ts that speed all the time, and for whom the humps were fitted, are so thick they just blithely blat across them without pause, so no change there.

And to cap it off, where I live in Richtown, Poshshire, everyone's got an ML, Toerag, XC90 or an X5 (except poor old me!), so the traffic calming measures are even less noticeable than the school children wrapped round their undercarriage.

[DaiRees]

Yup, loads of 'em round ere too! Not too bad in the 406, unnoticable in the wifes 206, back breaking in my Suzuki!

[STALLED]

There is one I know of like that in Sydney just near the harbour bridge....I just allways position the car so you dont hit em!

The worst are the proper speed humps which are the size of mountains. Was out for a drive with some mates last week and with the 406 loaded up it sits quite low. I would go over one of these humps and the bloody thing would scrape the undercarrage/exhaust on the top of the hump....bloody cringeworthy!!!

Go go 406!

[neildavies]

I normally slow down quite a bit for them in the coupe. My wife's 206cc (go-kart like) you'd feel a pebble-dash stone on the floor.

As for Dai's comment on them, I can vouch that he doesn't seem to notice them and carries on as normal.

[niz406]

Welts,

The 406's wheelbase is usually wide enough to straddle without any contact with the hump at any speed, when the humps are of proper regulation dimensions Its intended to make you think you have to slow down... well unless they have the center hump in the middle of the road that is! !

They are a bloody nuisance and will not do my poorly engine mounting any good, or my tryes, suspension joints etc.

TBH, its nothing for the 406's suspension set up, it will eat the humps for breakfast! The stress testing carried out on a cars suspension would bring a tear to your eyes if you saw it being done to your own car! So don't worry as long as you have no naff parts!

[Welly]

That's the thing Nizzer, some of them I can straddle and others are just that bit wider, I've tried everything but some are bigger than others

[DaiRees]

They've widened some of them here because employment of the straddle method resulted in no benefit except for improvement of the driver's aim. Now they're too wide to straddle and too close together to get in between them .

[niz406]

15mm wheel spacers will sort you out!

Go on have a bash at it!

[Blue406]

Up here they've been building them anywhere they fancy.

On corners, on hills, at the foot of folks driveways. There are many hundreds of roads that have none for miles then 5 rows of them within 400 yards.

The worst I've seen is a set of 4 on a steep down hill left hand curve. The grooves dug into them are terrible. They make them out of tarmac up here and there seems to be no real measuring going on and some are a good foot tall!

[johnd]

You need speed humps like us in South Yorks there are number of streets where the contracters have spaced them too far apart and even the buses can pass through the middle without touching them.
The council have just won a court hearing and the contractors have to dig them all up and start again at a cost to them dont you just know your council tax is being spent well.