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Residents take their own action over 20mph limit (From Oxford Mail)
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Residents take their own action over 20mph limit
10:30am Tuesday 19th February 2013 in News
By Jamie Brooks, Contact me on 01865 425422
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Phil Gauron installs planters at the chicane in Lime Walk, Headington, as part of a neighbourhood campaign to get drivers to heed the 20mph limit. Picture: OX57451 Andrew Walmsley
A GROUP of frustrated Oxford residents fed up with rat-running drivers have taken matters into their own hands.
Campaigners say the 20mph zone in Lime Walk, Headington, is regularly ignored by drivers, who use it to get between London Road and Old Road.
They say Oxfordshire County Council has not provided them with support for more speed-calming measures.
So residents have decorated the area, installing planters featuring children’s windmills at the chicane on the junction of Lime Walk and All Saints Road.
Phil Gauron, 66, co-ordinator of the awareness team, said: “We are doing what we can to raise awareness in a fun sort of way that this is a 20mph zone. We have been fighting this for 12 years. People are still speeding a lot and a significant proportion are in excess of 30mph.”
Children living in the street decorated windmills, while other residents donated pots and plants to remind drivers the junction is at the heart of a residential area. When snow fell last week, a number of residents drew 20mph signs on their car windscreens.
The DIY traffic calming came after residents failed to gain county council support for a trial of community-funded speed reduction measures.
Lime Walk residents met council officers on January 16 to see if they could borrow bollards and other equipment to slow traffic down.
Last week they were told it was no longer possible for the county council to work with them.
Mr Gauron, a video and audio producer for the Open University, said: “The only feature the council has put in is this chicane on the junction.
“The chicane has been an eyesore. It seems to work up to a point but not in the main bit of the road in Lime Walk.
“We know there are funding issues but we are upset that the council is not prepared to support speed reduction we were prepared to pay for.”
Mr Gauron said previous surveys showed that in Lime Walk alone up to 800 vehicles per day exceeded 26mph.
City councillor Ruth Wilkinson said: “The residents have battled long and hard to get traffic calming in their local area, and despite all setbacks, they are coming up with some great ideas to get the message through.”
The county council spent almost £250,000 introducing the 20mph scheme for almost all residential roads and some main routes in September 2009.
But in 2012 Thames Valley Police admitted it had not issued a single ticket for breaking the 20mph limit. Last August, police announced officers would start enforcing the 20mph limit for the first time since its widespread introduction.
County council spokesman Sam Henry said budget pressures meant it could not pay for further measures and warned residents to be careful, as any unauthorised obstruction of the highway is illegal.
Thames Valley Police was yesterday going to the site to check the placement of plants and balloons was legal.
Comments are closed on this article.
Comments (47)
11:06am Tue 19 Feb 13
Christine Hovis says...
11:17am Tue 19 Feb 13
Bart_simpsonDoh says...
12:10pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Floflo says...
Or perhaps it really grinds you down that people are planting flowers in pots and plants along their street?
Either way good on you Bart for taking a stand and driving you car for no reason other than to annoy people.
12:18pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Bart_simpsonDoh says...
12:30pm Tue 19 Feb 13
oafie says...
.might have to sue them.
12:36pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Floflo says...
12:42pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Dastroll says...
/watch?v=Sz13gs5FPHo who has the right of way, its an accident waiting to happen
12:44pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Andrew:Oxford says...
And of, course, the items should meet European/British standards for reassurance that when damaged through impact or frost they will not splinter or break into sharp pieces.
There are clear rules for "street furniture" - at least, in this case, there is photographic evidence of an individual tending and thus taking responsibility for the items - I hope his domestic insurance provides cover.
12:46pm Tue 19 Feb 13
sablond oxford says...
12:52pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Feelingsmatter says...
1:29pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Floflo says...
A far better solution is for speed limits to be enforced and offenders prosecuted. It's far to easy to get away with speeding.
Additionally if anyone wants to safely brighten up their street then good on them!
1:39pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Bart_simpsonDoh says...
2:07pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Christine Hovis says...
The little planting reminds people that the purpose for which these roads were laid down for was to provide access to houses, not through-routes for traffic.
You're in no danger of falling over the plants if you cross at the designated places. I'm sure the County will advise whether any sections of the Highways Act 1980 are being breached.
2:37pm Tue 19 Feb 13
WitneyGreen says...
2:42pm Tue 19 Feb 13
NinjaBiscuits says...
2:44pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Bart_simpsonDoh says...
3:19pm Tue 19 Feb 13
BigAlBiker says...
Driving my fully legal vehicle is a pleasure, sometimes i do it because i like it, sometimes i do it to go somewhere.
3:54pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Sid Hunt says...
Lime Walk is hardly a narrow road - it is at least as wide as Gipsy Lane. The fact that the area available for vehicles is restricted is due to other vehicles being parked on the road.
Clear the parked vehicles and there will be a road available for its intended purpose.
4:01pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Isawyoucoming says...
4:52pm Tue 19 Feb 13
moonlight shadow says...
4:57pm Tue 19 Feb 13
davyboy says...
5:06pm Tue 19 Feb 13
moonlight shadow says...
After all if Lime Walk was access only all the other nimbys would want it in their road too.
6:19pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Milkbutnosugarplease says...
6:52pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Andrew:Oxford says...
http://publicapps.ox
fordshire.gov.uk/wps
/portal/publicapps/a
pplications/reportpr
oblem
8:13pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Christine Hovis says...
It's a bus route, has the taller lighting connected with more major thoroughfares and has several major business based on in that are realitvely heavy in traffic (a builders merchants, a removals company and a hospital).
So rather than drive down that, and wait, maybe two minutes, for the lights in Headington Centre, traffic goes down Lime Walk. That's probably fair enough, but, as the article makes clear, not at 40mph.
In our satnav world, the traffic includes heavy good vehicles who fancy cutting the corner too.
Lime Walk was designed to connect houses to the outside road structure, not for a continual stream of people who are bored by waiting at traffic lights and prefer to nip down side streets.
8:52pm Tue 19 Feb 13
headingtonsignandspedwatch says...
9:19pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Accelebrate says...
10:43am Wed 20 Feb 13
Andrew:Oxford says...
It's very easy to do - and the council has the access to the DVLA records to complete the task.
When a work colleague pressed his council to do the same for his "rat-run" street - the locals were staggered (and embarrassed) to discover that the majority of "speeders" lived in the area/adjacent streets.
12:14pm Wed 20 Feb 13
sablond oxford says...
12:18pm Wed 20 Feb 13
WhereIlive says...
12:34pm Wed 20 Feb 13
zimmer, Wolvecote. says...
12:35pm Wed 20 Feb 13
Floflo says...
It's obvious that people take an interest in their own 'back yard'. It's naive to assume strangers share the same concerns as a local.
12:37pm Wed 20 Feb 13
zimmer, Wolvecote. says...
1:14pm Wed 20 Feb 13
Andrew:Oxford says...
Yes
Quick remote download, exclude vehicles travelling at 20mph or under. Bulk upload of remaining registration plates to the DVLA - obtain postcode.
Plot on an electronic map.
It's not exactly rocket science...
How do you think average speed cameras on motorways operate? Or how the London Congestion zone operates...
Digital gives you so many options. It's why I know that my nextdoor neighbour has kindly moved my bin onto my drive this morning once it was emptied. The system recognised that someone was in my garden notified me, captured an image of their face and sent it through. Simples
1:24pm Wed 20 Feb 13
WhereIlive says...
Are you suggesting nobody should live on a road where the traffic excedes the stated limit and move to a Close?This problem is not routed in NIMBY'ISM, this is about public safety. It's 20 for a reason and it's that simple.
2:29pm Wed 20 Feb 13
zimmer, Wolvecote. says...
2:52pm Wed 20 Feb 13
Accelebrate says...
http://www.abd.org.u
k/speed_surveys.htm
So a radar and battery, recording speed and a rough guess at the type of vehicle. No ANPR, GSM or anything else that you mentioned.
Maybe you should investigate strapping your IP camera to lampposts instead?
3:36pm Wed 20 Feb 13
WhereIlive says...
3:48pm Wed 20 Feb 13
dant40 says...
I see they dont complain about the ambulances going from the Churchill.
4:05pm Wed 20 Feb 13
WhereIlive says...
4:10pm Wed 20 Feb 13
Dastroll says...
4:21pm Wed 20 Feb 13
dant40 says...
6:42pm Wed 20 Feb 13
Andrew:Oxford says...
Professional devices are best for professional needs.
7:14pm Wed 20 Feb 13
Accelebrate says...
10:23am Thu 21 Feb 13
Abartonresident says...
11:37am Thu 21 Feb 13
Sid Hunt says...
2:40pm Thu 21 Feb 13
Lord Palmerstone says...
If the Council were to put concrete ramps on the road your houses will start to suffer cracking and more serious problems.
Within 10 years tachographs will be compulsory. They will link to artificial revenue raising speed limits-i.e. those imposed since 1972 -and few of us will not have 12 points within a month. What then?
The morons who do 30 on a short street and put enough energy on their brakes at the end to boil 4 cups of tea are undoubtedly the first to moan about fuel prices (the second group are those who have dysfunctional "boom boom" exhausts. They haven't noticed that normal children stop making "boom boom" noises at 2)