Ask any bus or taxi driver what part of their job they really hate. They will tell you about their backs being done in due to driving over sleeping policemen and other road humps.
They give us the Hump
I know how they feel from personal experience; my street has a school nearby. So sleeping policemen are crashed out every few yards, including right outside my front door. They are described as traffic calming measures. But few people would describe themselves as calm after going over them on a dark night, especially while dropping off in the back seat of a taxi.
Blackburn’s worst areas for speed humps seem to be Revidge, Highercroft and Shadsworth. A bus ride up Highercroft is like going up and down a roller coaster. Things are not helped by the twists and turns the buses have to take along their route, no thanks to bad parking.
Shadworth’s assault course is more direct, travelling along Rothesay Road. But it’s not only humps which impede the flow of traffic. Speed cushions are also in use here. Those annoying twisting single file chicanes also add to a road user’s misery.
On the other side of town, Wimberley Street has a particularly difficult chicane to navigate, not helped by parked cars. Here one marvels at the skills of the bus driver in action. Sadly, some of the car parking here leaves a lot to be desired.
Pride of place for sleeping policemen must belong to the north side of Blackburn’s infamous Revidge Hump, where you pass the Golf Club. Despite warning signs, this tarmac obstacle seems to catch everybody out. You can sometimes see evidence in the road of this, where dumper trucks have shed part of their load after misjudging the hump.
Unfortunately, sleeping policemen and other traffic calming measures are there for a reason. The drivers who wouldn’t slow down are the reason why they exist in the first place. Sadly, they also add extra time to the fire engines, ambulances and wide-awake policemen’s response times.
These emergency services are often sent to save the victims of accidents caused by those unreasonable drivers whose actions merited traffic calming measures being brought in. But if the humps were taken away, you can guarantee somebody would be complaining within 24 hours about traffic going too fast down the street. Whatever happens with sleeping policemen – somebody’s going to get the hump.