TRAFFIC calming is an important measure to improve the safety of residential areas and even of major roads whether by traffic bumps, chicanes or rumble strips.
It is equally important that emergency services can have speedy access and egress from the same areas. In this respect, rumble strips are by far the most suitable.
No frail person or patient with a head injury or fracture would like to be driven over traffic bumps in an ambulance and just one badly-parked vehicle can stop ambulances and fire engines from getting through a chicane.
Excessive zeal for traffic calming can also have its dangers, providing an obstacle course encouraging a motor cyclist to weave in and out without regard to pedestrians to show how skilled he is.
Another example of bad planning is the Spring Gardens estate in Darwen, quarter of a mile from a major road and half a mile from the shops.
The empty road with a footpath leading to the estate had 10 traffic bumps making a trip by car or by public transport, if any, singularly unpleasant.
EDMUND CRITCHLEY (Professor of Neurology, University of Central Lancashire), Merlin Road, Blackburn.
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