The next door village has had some new street furniture.
There’s the faux gates, which are just on the verges but are presumably intended to be a visual cue that you are entering an area where the speed is restricted. (Big round signs with the number “30” on used to be good enough.) These are OK.
There’s the flashing light, telling you the speed if you go too fast. This is a bit dumb, because the reward for going too fast is a pretty light display, but the lights don’t work most of the time anyway.
And then there are the full-road-width orange strips with “rumble” type ridges on the village side of the picturesque gated-village. These are totally counter-productive, and I’ll tell you why.
At 30mph, there is a terrible noise and vibration when you drive over them. At 40mph it is much nicer – less noise and over quicker. At 50mph you can barely tell it is there. Brilliant! It rewards you when you go faster. On the motorway, the rumble strips at the edge of the carriageway make you get off them, back to safety. The best way to get off these speed strips is to minimise the time spent on them.
What is the purpose of these strips? They are inside the restricted section, so they are too late to be reminders. They are on both sides of the road, so they are just as annoying when leaving the village – a reminder to speed up now?
Did anybody think this through?