A GOOD idea in theory but traffic calming seems to give nearly everyone the hump.

Chicanes, sleeping policemen and one-way traffic complete with garish fluorescent signs telling us the obvious (here is a speed hump) are taking over our streets and driving everyone mad.

Purveyors of exhausts and suspension systems are laughing all the way to the bank and small villages in the sticks will feel safer as traffic speed is reduced but surely there's a limit.

Cars using residential streets as a rat run are tailing back, bumper to bumper, spewing out poisonous exhaust fumes upon pedestrians because the traffic has been 'calmed' so much you'd be quicker on your hands and knees.

OK, no one is likely to get run over, but the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning, asthma, and all manner of stress related conditions shoot up through the roof.

And is anyone ever asked if they actually want these schemes inflicted upon them? My theory is that council bods ask the simple question "Would you like to see levels of traffic reduced in your street?" to which anyone would answer positively and then WHACK you've got all manner of municipal street sculpture outside your front door.

What's worse is that, having crunched your exhaust system and negotiated past three different forms of traffic calming within 100 yards, incensed drivers rev their engines and shoot off at speeds far more likely to cause accidents.

The emergency services loathe them and did anyone ever think of the effect on funeral processions?

Hearses are not known for their manoeuvrability and there's nothing dignified about grieving relatives bouncing up and down in the back of the limousine.

And, to add insult to injury, it's our money which pays for this madness. It's time the sleeping policemen woke up!

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.