Speed, noise and nuisance

I am not a grumpy old man!

Is it me or is the traffic on this road getting worse? I live right on the bad bend by the railway station. Cars, vans, lorries, even buses zoom round this bend, sometimes at breakneck speeds, making it incredibly difficult to cross the road, either on foot, bicycle or car.
Getting out of my drive by car is often a hair-raising experience when a vehicle comes round the bend at the same time. Even if they are only doing 30mph - the legal limit, they are suddenly right on top of you, jamming on their brakes, often shaking their fists in anger. But hang on . . who is at fault here? Did I pull out in front of them? No. The road was clear when I pulled out. More often than not, cars doing more than 20mph are going at an inappropriate speed for the position and layout of the road. But there is no control.

I have written to the Police and council in the past about this problem. But all they do in response is put a policeman half way up the road with a radar gun, for a couple of hours and as a one-off. He is always clearly visible and so all motorists do is jam on their brakes as they see him, before he gets his double-reading - the requirement to get a conviction and accurate reading. So most motorists evade the speeding fine and, as a result, travel at a reasonable speed, while he's there that is. At all other times, it's back to normal. Only a few get caught.

But what does this really achieve? The answer is nothing, it's pointless. What is needed is a permanent traffic-calming measure, such a speed indicator, or a warning sign or even a speed camera.

There have been a catalogue of accidents in this stretch of the road. I witnessed a bad one a few years ago right outside my house. A Woody's lorry rounded the bend too fast (as usual) and was presented with a cyclist on his nearside and a lady in a Vauxhall Cavalier coming towards him on the opposite side of the road. As far as I can fathom, his choice was a) mow the cyclist down, probably killing him, or b) pull out, missing the cyclist but in doing so, rip the entire side off the cavalier. He chose the latter.

There have been at least four lesser accidents since, all caused by speed.

I personally am getting extremely fed up with the noise for one, the road surface yields a high level of tyre noise, not dissimilar to concrete, and the faster cars go, the noisier it is. I can tell just from road noise alone if a car is speeding, from inside my house. Secondly, almost every car accelerates out of the bend, so all I hear all day long is the sound of revving, sometimes screaming engines - I can't believe that in this day and age of spiralling fuel costs, that people drive like Sterling Moss everywhere. It's quite incredible.

Then, there are what I call the 'ASBO' drivers. Why do we (the public) have to put up with incredibly intrusive noise, such as over-amplified car stereos (and why do these anti-social idiots always drive around on full volume with their windows open?) and those cars with huge 'sewer pipe' exhausts that send a low-resonant booming through to the depths of your innards. Do I want this? No I don't, but do I get a choice? No. It's wrong but nobody cares, least of all, the culprits. We get our unfair share of these idiots along our road, usually speeding excessively.

So what can be done? Well I think if there is a shared view on this, and from the feedback about the proposed development is anything to go by, Silfield Road residents on the whole are pretty fed up with it and traffic volumes as well. If you've got something to say, add to this blog. It's better than a petition in my opinion and should provide weight to lobbying an MP or the local council to sit up, take notice and even DO SOMETHING about it.

Alan