Revealed: Those new traffic calming measures in fu

Revealed: Those new traffic calming measures in fu

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xxxxxxrich

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188 posts

246 months

Saturday 5th June 2004
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Those new traffic calming measures in full

The Rock All Times said:
Revealed: Those new traffic calming measures in full
Radical stuff from the University of Rockall
by Flash Gorman
Safety-conscious boffins at the University of Rockall have unveiled a new weapon in the battle against speeding cars. After literally minutes of research they have found of way of slowing traffic to a crawl without the use of speed cameras or complicated electronic doohickeys.

Project leader, Dr Ivan Matthews, unveiled the new device to the assembled press yesterday morning. There were gasps of excitement when be pulled the cover of a large object in the middle of the room to reveal — a smashed up Porsche.

Dr Mathews explained: "We have found that any form of crash wreckage at the side of the road will significantly reduce the speed of oncoming traffic, as drivers slow for what is technically termed 'a good old gawp'. Furthermore, our tests have revealed that the more exotic the car, the more people will slow down."

"Thus we will be able to calibrate the car wreckage to achieve the desired slowing factor. If for instance we only wanted to slow down the traffic a bit then we would place, say, a two slightly-dented Mondeos together. If on the other hand we wanted to achieve a dramatic traffic slow factor, then we would put a brand new smashed up Lamborghini on top of a police patrol car with a couple of dummies beside the cars covered in blankets. This will have the added benefit of causing some of the passing cars to shunt into each other and hence slow the traffic further. For complete gridlock, we will deploy the 'SpeedBuster' — two decapitated Page 3 models in a Bentley convertible wedged into the side of a juggernaut which has spilled 10,000 rubber ducks across both carriageways."

The government plans to test the new traffic-calming measures on a section of the A12 during the end of Bank Holiday motor stampede. If the scheme proves successful it may one day be expanded to replace existing government calming schemes such as caravans towed by old men wearing leather driving gloves or the current favourite — deploying 100,000 cones to create pandemonium on large areas of serviceable carriageway.