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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,11032,1218325,00.html
A hump too far ... traffic is contained, but not the growing annoyance of car users
Safety measures have shown results, but not without risk of provoking a backlash
Andrew Clark, transport correspondent
Monday May 17, 2004
The Guardian
Peering through her car window outside Enfield's Highlands secondary school Sajdha Chaudry eyes a row of speed humps suspiciously. "They might be okay for controlling speeding but they're no good for my car," says the mother of three, who has just dropped off her 13-year-old daughter. "When the car's full, the exhaust pipe is constantly getting scratched."
Highlands is on World's End Lane, a narrow north-south rat run which passes three schools and skirts Enfield golf course.
The road is a traffic manager's dream - it contains speed cushions, 20mph zones, bumps and even "humped pedestrian crossings". Drawings by local schoolchildren are nailed alongside warning signs urging motorists to slow down.
These are the frontline weapons in the government's battle against dangerous driving - a war in which ministers have done rather well since 1997. But Mrs Chaudry is not the only one to harbour growing reservations.
Carolyn Allder, a local resident heading home from Sainsbury's, is equally sceptical: "They do cause hold ups. During the school run it's absolute murder with everyone slowing down for the humps.
"When I drive I'm not a speed merchant but I think this is the wrong place to put these things. This is a narrow lane, it doesn't need all these humps."
Road safety is among Labour's rare successes in transport. Ministers may be unable to make the trains run on time, build tram systems efficiently or ease traffic jams but they have presided over an impressive record in accident reduction.
According to the Department for Transport there were 37,080 serious road casualties in Britain last year - down 6% on 2002 and a drop of 22% on the mid-1990s. The transport secretary, Alistair Darling, is well on his way to meeting a target of a 40% cut set in the government's 10 year plan.
Britain can boast the the best record in Europe on road safety with six deaths for every 100,000 people, compared with eight in Germany, 13 in France and 14 in the US. However, these achievements have required tough action which has angered many drivers.
Nationwide, the government has banned the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving, allowed councils to reinvest profits from speed cameras and funded hard-hitting "Think!" commercials showing graphic scenes of injury and bereavement.
But an increasingly rancorous section of the motoring population is growing impatient with "anti-car" policies. At the extreme end of the uprising is Captain Gatso, the self-styled champion of freedom for drivers who has made his name by setting fire to speed cameras.
Less militant, but still discontented, are drivers in Enfield, who feel they face a rollercoaster ride of humps and chicanes every time they drive around the block.
According to the London Assembly more than 1,000 miles of road have been treated with humps in the capital. Each one costs some £10,000 to install. Labour has been encouraging such measures - both politically and financially. But they have caused controversy - the Metropolitan police reckons 34 of its vehicles were damaged by humps in just three months. The London Ambulance Service has suggested that these could be costing lives by slowing the journeys of heart attack victims, while the T&G union claims they cause chronic back pain among bus drivers.
Enfield council's Conservative administration, which took office two years ago, wants to begin ripping them out.
Councillor Terry Neville, the borough's cabinet member for transport, says: "Humps have had their day - the world has moved on."
Whenever a road in the borough is resurfaced he advocates flattening the humps. He suggests more sophisticated, less intrusive measures, such as reactive signs which warn drivers when they are breaking the limit.
"Unless it's absolutely impossible to put in any other form of calming, I envisage getting rid of humps," Mr Neville says.
The Conservative administration is playing for big financial stakes. The government has given local authorities incentives to meet targets under a scheme known as "local public service agreements".
Enfield has a Whitehall-set target of reducing its serious road casualties from 235 annually during the mid-1990s to 182 by 2010.
The borough has already had a £1m "pump-priming" grant to pay for road safety measures. If it succeeds in hitting the target it will get a reward running into millions.
Then there is funding from Transport for London, which works with the capital's boroughs on safety measures. A fellow Conservative council, Barnet, has already lost £1.5m of funding from the mayor, Ken Livingstone, for "putting children's lives at risk" in scrapping traffic calming. Its leader responded by describing TfL as "Transport for Lefties".
So far in Enfield progress has been solid. Serious casualties dropped from 209 to 195 last year - the lowest for a decade. Minor casualties also dropped sharply, from 1,808 to 1,525. Most of the accidents now take place on a handful of trunk routes, including the M25, the north-south A10, and the North Circular Road.
But it is unclear whether this record can be maintained if the council presses ahead with its manifesto of straightening chicanes, scrapping speed cushions and dismantling speed cameras.
Glyn Jones, the council's head of transport planning, is sanguine about the chances of hitting the jackpot and sceptical about the government's enthusiasm for targets.
He points out that Enfield actually met its 2010 goal in 1999 - a year with unusually few accidents.
Whether it can repeat the feat in six years' time, he says, is rather more difficult to predict. A single major accident that year could skew the figure, losing the council millions.
"Accidents are pretty random events," he says.
"The fluctuation is massive. Overall, the trend is going down but whether we'll meet what we're supposed to in 2010 is anyone's guess. I'd rather put my money on the Grand National."
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