A big pain in the... wallet
A recent survey by an online car-buying website has discovered – surprise surprise –that the overwhelming majority of motorists don’t like speed bumps. The bigger news is that your friendly, neighbourhood sleeping policemen cost the average motorist £235 a year in extra car maintenance costs.
Introduced in 1991, the speed bump was instigated to help the government reduce speeds – their figures claim that for every 1mph we slow down, the chance of an accident falls by 5 percent.
However, over the last 10 years, a survey of 60,000 insurance claims revealed that 1 in 8 cars have suffered damage as a direct result of speed bumps. We also found out that it is illegal for a speed bump to be more that 100mm high, but the Department for Transport has recommended that 75mm be the limit to avoid structural damage to surrounding buildings.
At least a road full of speed bumps is always an excuse to take the long way home.