Give Ickleford a fair and proper consultation on Road Humps Ickleford is not an Island! Parish Council decisions impact the wider community so we want to hear protests from anyone affected not just Ickleford residents

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The Great Hump Contradiction - were road humps necessary to have a school crossing?

At a public meeting on 8 October 2008, Ickleford residents were told road humps were necessary to bring speeds down to a safe level at the proposed location for the school crossing. This was later confirmed in an email sent from Ken Clowes (Assistant District Manager for Hitchin & Rural West) dated 4 March 2010 saying:

“Design guidelines for zebra crossings prohibit their use where traffic speeds exceed 35mph. Traffic speeds on Arlesey Road currently exceed this figure. The speed cushions are therefore needed to moderate the speeds on the approaches to the new crossing.”

The first obvious flaw in this statement is that there are only road cushions on the approach to the crossing in one direction, and in the other direction the nearest road cushion to the crossing is sufficiently far enough away that a vehicle could easily speed up again.

Hertfordshire Highways carried out a traffic survey from Wednesday 5 December 2007. The average speed near the school was 26.79mph in one direction and 27.41mph in the opposite direction. Furthermore the 85^th percentile^* was 32.23mph in one direction and 33.21mph in the opposite direction.

Another one week traffic survey commenced Monday 22 March 2010. This was after the crossing had been installed but BEFORE any road cushions had been put on the approach to the crossing. The average speed was shown to be 27.34mph in one direction and 26.61mph in the opposite direction. The 85^th percentile^* was 31.54mph in one direction and 31.27mph in the opposite direction.

Traffic speeds are not remotely close to 35mph in either of these surveys and therefore we asked Ken Clowes of Hertfordshire Highways to specifically explain his statement of “The speed cushions are therefore needed to moderate the speeds on the approaches to the new crossing”. Apparently this email had been written by Justin Murphy (who no longer works for Hertfordshire Highways) but sent from Ken Clowes. He told me that our question had been forwarded for a response.

On 1 July 2011, we received a reply from Roxanne Glaud who is the Programme & Strategy Manager for Northern Hertfordshire. She said:

“The Design guidelines for Zebra crossings prohibit their use where traffic speeds exceed 35mph. Please note the guidance further states ‘where the traffic speeds are higher than 30mph, people will require longer gaps in the traffic flow or be exposed to the risk of more serious injury if precedence is not conceded for any reason’. Local Transport Note (LTN) 1/95 further states in relation to Zebra crossings: ‘In some situations it may be appropriate to install road humps, providing these conform to the requirements of the Highways (Road Humps) Regulations, to slow speeds to below 30 mph. The Regulations in these circumstances allow crossings to be humped‘.”

The above is all very interesting (if somewhat confusing) but doesn't answer the question! The average speed recorded right near the crossing before any road cushions were installed was just 27mph - well below 35mph and 30mph. We replied to Roxanne Glaud asking her to say whether or not Ickleford could have a crossing without the road humps. We await her reply.

^*85^thpercentile - This is the speed at which 85 percent of the vehicles travel at or below. It is used by Highways along with averages to gain a clearer idea of what motorists consider is an acceptable speed to drive at.