DIY traffic calming: Council sells road signs to slow speeding cars
Nottinghamshire County Council is offering local people the chance to buy an electronic speed sign, which warns motorists they are travelling too fast, for their own street.
The signs cost over £7,000 to buy and about £150 each year to maintain.
Until now, residents worried about speeding cars have had to apply for a sign to be installed according to set criteria.
The council has a back-log of hundreds of applications for interactive signs awaiting approval. It is hoped that the new system will allow communities to hold fund-raising events in order to get them installed sooner.
A spokesperson for the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) said: “If this initiative is about providing additional signs, rather than reducing the total number that would have been installed in any case, then it is to be welcomed.”
Traffic calming – when people take matters into their own hands
Motor traffic can have a devastating effect on quality of life in areas where people live, work and go to school.
When people take matters into their own hands to slow traffic in their community it is sometimes known as ‘guerilla traffic calming’.
| DIY traffic calming | … at a glance |
|---|---|
| Balloons | Community groups in America place tethered helium-filled balloons in the middle of streets where children play |
| Cameras | Villages in England have built fake speed cameras to slow approaching cars |
| Concrete | New Yorkers created their own curb extensions to slow traffic speeds on corners |
| Paint | A resident in Northern California painted their own zebra crossing when the local authority refused to install one  |
