I saw this story about a new traffic calming measure in the Watford Observer.
This Google Maps image shows the feature (BEFORE it was modified, judging from the descriptions in the article):
The restriction in question used to be 236cm wide, and it had a single post either side. After being modified, it is now 213cm wide, and it has three posts on each side.
The question you have to ask is why was it made narrower?
Apparently, numerous cars have been damaged – some can’t even get through it – and at least two are in the process of suing the council.
It is also on a driving test route.
The article points out:
On the day it was re-opened, police were forced to close the road while engineers came back to shorten the steel posts, which had knocked the wing mirrors off dozens of cars.
So it was poorly installed even in the first place. This should automatically lead you to at least consider that it might have been poorly installed in other ways, or that it was perhaps poorly conceived at some point. The fact that it is causing so many problems surely points to something being wrong somewhere.
…several drivers have continued to hit the shortened posts, with one engineer admitting one in ten vehicles are being damaged by the obstacle.
There comes a point when you can’t keep blaming the motorist. When 10% of them are experiencing the same problem, maybe you have found that point?
Unless you are a council held by this Mickey Mouse coalition we have at the moment.
The problem seems to be that the restriction is now not so much a bottleneck as a channel – the three posts either side mean you have to drive in a precise line over a finite distance instead of just at a single point, so you have to be absolutely parallel with the kerb as well as more equally spaced either side to negotiate the 23cm narrower gap – and you have to maintain it over several metres.
But here’s where it gets really funny. It’s the part where the Mickey Mouse councillors try to justify it:
Council bosses claim the work, costing £18,000, was carried out to save them money repairing the previous posts.
A resident points out that all six of the new posts are already damaged.
The police say they have had reports of drivers hitting the posts as well as of them using the bus lane in the middle. Ah yes, the bus lane – I wonder if that is any wider than it was before?
Hertfordshire County Councillor Stephen Giles-Medhurst, who sits on the authority’s highways and transport panel, said it was a possibility a camera could be introduced to prevent this.
The Liberal Democrat representative for Central Watford and Oxhey said: “If it continues it is something we could consider.
Wow. What a way for the Mickey Mouse government to save money – spend cash needlessly altering a chicane, end up spending more to maintain it than you did before to contradict your alleged reason for changing it at all, then put a camera in to make sure it isn’t used incorrectly as a result of its rubbish design and build quality!
Giles-Medhurst then reveals his true feelings about those he is supposed to represent:
“I drove my car, a Toyota Prius, through the posts and had no problem. It shouldn’t be an issue unless you misjudge it. I would ask, if you lose you wing mirror, are you driving at the right speed?
“There have been a lot of complaints, particularly from people with cars wider than 7ft, but there are signs up and if you ignore them, you do so at your own risk.”
What a prize moron he is.
In any case, all this is about the bus lane and nothing else. The modification was done for the buses, not motorists or anyone else.