Tuesday 7 August 2007

Speed limits

We live on a one way street (well it's 85% one way). It's a residential street with a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. There are three schools at the end of the road and cars park on the side of the road making it quite narrow. To add to the confusion our road takes you towards the nearby ambulance station.

The council, in their infinite wisdom, have considered some actions to address two issues the street experiences: cars travelling at excessive speed, cars going the wrong way down the one way bit.

The measures under consideration are: narrowing of the road briefly at the section where the one way section begins, putting up advisory 20 miles per hour limit signs. The advisory speed limit of 20 miles per hour wouldn't be enforceable.

Their ideas might be OK but I got a better idea today to handle the excessive speed issue. On my way to work I pass one of those signs that flashes the speed limit as a reminder if you're travelling too fast.

I think that flashing the speed limit as a reminder is a bit tame. As I was walking along the street tonight and some idiot drove past at about 50 miles per hour, I thought "A**ewipe".

Unfortunately that pearl was missed by the driver, which lead me to my idea.

I think an illuminated sign with a variety of messages should flash up, roadside, when someone exceeds the advisory limit.

Messages I think might be appropriate (asterisks used to protect sensibilities):
W*nker
F***er
A***wipe
A***hole
C***
Tw*t
C*ck s*cker
Shrimp d*ck
Loooooser

You get the idea.

Now I don't actually think this would fix the problem. I know if I drove along this street with this facility I would deliberately break the limit to see what message I'd receive. This doesn't matter though. I think people will always break the limit; this message board would serve to provide me with amusement in the meantime.

2 comments:

Rana said...

Advisory speed limits are a joke. A joke that you made ;)

I don't like speed limits, but I like your idea of graded penalties, needs to be explained properly later.

Maybe your signs could vary on the car as well as the speed - imagine the appropriate message for a guy in a Hummer...

Ann Cardus said...

Environmental small dick terrorist maybe?