Overtaking at a speed bump

[Ayahuasca]

This is my speed bump ignoring machine. Making up time between bumps is not an option, but maintaining a steady lowish constant speed over them is.

[Boosted LS1]

I'll overtake on the smooth ones if I'm behind a stop start dawdler on a road near me which has more then a dozen of them. In fact, I'll pass a stop start person whenever I can if there are a number of humps ahead.

If the speed limit's 30 then wouldn't they be an obstruction if you can't drive over them at 30? My take is that they're there to maintain the limit. Common sense has to apply at the time imo.

[oyster]

turbobloke said:

rb5er said:

HantsRat said:

Traffic calming bumps are not just put there for no reason.

The reason is usually so people don't exceed the speed limit. Speed bumps go way past that and stop many motorists getting anywhere near to even reaching the limit.

The reason is that Councils don't have much of a clue about road safety and have jumped on whatever becomes a fashionable policy so they are seen to 'do something'. Claiming any safety benefit has to use the same dodgy approach used by speed camera supporters, i.e. make wild claims based on cherry picking and don't worry too much about methodology or causality.

When the London Borough of Barnet removed all its humpy traffic calming road obstructions the number accidents fell by 15% in the first six months. If that result was treated in the same way as the early speed camera trials, there would be no speed bumps anywhere in the country by now.

PHers following the blue light threads where discussion takes place aorund emergency vehicles being delayed by a few seconds if a car is slow to move over or violate a red light will be interested in the research showing how a fire engine is delayed by ~10 seconds per hump. A similar result for Ambulance journeys with injured patients on board saw transit times doubled. We don't tend to see research like that because it's either not funded or kept quiet due to obtaining the 'wrong' result, at least until the right result can be fiddlefactored.

A Boulder (Colorado) analysis showed that 85 people are likely to die from delays caused to to emergency vehicles by speed bumps for every one life that is claimed to be saved by them, and this outcome ignores results from e.g. Barnet or it would be much worse. Home owners happy about living in a humpy area might like to count the number of speed bumps between their home and the nearest fire station and the nearest A&E hospital.

Joeguard1990 said:

I would have no issue with someone overtaking me if they felt that I was holding them up while trying not to damage my car

The maximum legal height of a speed hump is 100mm, but the Department for Transport has a parallel view which is also rarely heard:

DfT said:

To limit the possibility of grounding, investigations suggest that road humps generally should not exceed 75mm in height.

At that height overtaking would be facilitated as well, where it's safe to do so, allowing drivers to make safe progress where a low or lowered car is taking a long time to clear the obstructions.

You are all presuming these 'speed' bumps are there to reduce speed, accidents and injuries/deaths. I'm not so sure that's the primary reason, although it may be listed as a benefit when councils put them in.

I thought the main reason was to deter motorists from using those roads. You don't see humps in main roads, even when the limit is 20mph, whereas nearby side roads can have 30mph limits and bumps.

[Hackney]

HantsRat said:

Speed bumps are put in place with the sole reason to slow vehicles down at specific points. Why on earth would you overtake on one? Can't you just wait until after the speed bump?

How specific though? If the road limit is 30mph but the speed bump means a car has to drop to 10mph to negotiate it safely does that mean the limit on that bump is different to the other 99% of the road?

No, the bump is to help enforce a specific speed limit for the road.
If a car was driving at 10mph on a normal 30mph would you overtake it if it could be done safely. Of course. So why not over a bump?

[Hackney]

HantsRat said:

Driving without reasonable consideration

"This offence is appropriate when the driving amounts to a clear act of incompetence, selfishness, impatience or aggressiveness in addition to some other inconvenience to road users. "

Inconvenience could affect the vehicle you are overtaking due to the sudden unexpected overtake when the other vehicle is taking the speed bump carefully. It could shock them and cause them to vere off and break sharply. Plus oncoming vehicles (if there were any) may need to slow down.

As I said though, it would all depend on the circumstances at the time and if a police officer saw you thought it ticks the boxes for this offence.

Sudden? how is it sudden at the speeds being discussed?
How far would you veer off of a speed bump? And how would this cause damage to a car.... oh, you mean "brake"

You highlighted impatience. At one end of the scale that covers ever overtake ever.
But also, there needs to be additional inconvenience. I don't think this can be demonstrated at the speeds involved or described in your examples.

[wc98]

LoonR1 said:

wc98 said:

supermono said:

There is a school of thought whereby sometimes residents may not be sure their obstacle course is having any effect. Sometimes folks will give a friendly toot-toot as they traverse the speed hump in the small hours, just to let them know

petrol has also been known to break down some of the poorly sited ones ,apparently.

These are the schoolkid comments "Lookmat me I smash things up and act well hard all the time innit, Bruv "

i agree, terrible when grown men refuse to grow up what does bruv innit mean ? and can you explain how someone softening the edges of a poorly sited speed hump (on a bend,contravening the advice for where they should be sited) with petrol and someone else tooting their horn equates to smashing things up and acting hard all the time ?

someone has possibly led a sheltered life to come to that conclusion ,if they really believed that of course

[JimmyConwayNW]

AngryPartsBloke said:

OP, are you trying to clear them 'Ballistic' BJ baldwin style?

If not i'm disapointed.

I've managed to do that on some near my mums house in a slightly modified off roader.

Great fun