Speed Bump Greed Hump.

Over the last ten years, the UK government has seen fit to introduce a raft of measures, ostensibly designed  to make our lives safer and protect us from......well, from ourselves. Many of these initiatives have centred around roads and the unfortunate motorists that use them.

Now, I'm a realist as far as driving in the UK is concerned. Our Kingdom is smaller than a lot of US states, with a road infrastructure that has benefitted from none of the organisation afforded to more recent efforts. If driving was ever truly a pleasure, then much of it has been lost due to jammed routes and aggressive drivers. Our road surfaces often resemble a patchwork quilt, as one shoddy botch-job is laid over another, to the benefit only of the companies that get the contracts to keep maintaining them. In short, I believe in trying to reduce the amount of traffic on our roads, for all manner of reasons (many of which will be dealt with in future articles).

With no realistic public alternatives available at present, however, we are pretty much stuck with our impacted hardtop. So what can we do to solve this congestion? Well, according to the government, we can install millions of lumps of tarmac on hundreds of thousands of roads to prevent vehicles from utilising shortcuts and reroutes on their journeys.

There are other such 'traffic calming' systems in use too: the chicane-style dodgem kerbs that are often placed on the brows of hills, obscuring the view of oncoming traffic and the increasingly common habit of simply closing routes through residential areas (apart from local 'access'). The devisors of these snafus have their own special place reserved in hell, but it is the speed bumps that deserve a closer look.

Car companies are at an important junction (if you'll pardon the pun) in their history, with fuel pricier and more elusive than ever and environmental concern amongst the public increasing, not to mention increasingly reliable cars engineered to last longer than ever, the industry was, until recently, entering somewhat of a doldrum. What was needed was a way to reduce the working life of the average vehicle. One that, for example, introduced a systemic trauma to every single component.......

Has our government (quietly entering into public/enterprise initiatives left right and centre on our behalves) offered tax incentives for car companies willing to invest in their 'Road Safety' schemes? My theory is that when there is a proliferation of do-good measures, done for the 'benefit' of the public, it is usually because one or more parties is getting a payoff somewhere down the line. In this case, is it too difficult to believe that a firm like Toyota would be all too willing to donate an amount of cash to New Labour in exchange for a device on the road that will reduce the working lifetime of their cars, thus ensuring a nice increase in sell-through mid to long-term, with a tax sweetener in the short?

If you think the idea of these speed bumps having such an effect is farfetched, ask your mechanic next time the car is in for service what these things are doing to the suspension, brakes, shock absorbers, engine mountings, wheels, steering, tyres, chassis and more. Not only do they reduce the working life of the motor (by up to three years according to the mechanics I have asked), but they often render the cars more dangerous in-between services from the ongoing damage done. Ask a cyclist how dangerous these unlit, inconsistent obstacles can be, especially on a dark evening's ride.

What does three years less life and associated damage mean to the car industry? Billions and billions of pounds. The government will tell you that these measures are designed to help prevent cars from driving past schools and areas of dense housing, but what choice have we got? They will say it is part of an ongoing investment in or road transport system, but how many times have you driven down an unkempt, pot-holed dirt-track of a road, only to have to bounce over countless shiny new sleeping-policemen and swerve around safety-chicanes with your newly-damaged handling system?

Suspicion should be aroused when the government pounces on schemes like these because it inevitably means that it has stumbled upon an uncomplaining cash cow. After all, like speed cameras (now renamed 'safety cameras') I don't recall the British public clamouring for them to be introduced, do you?