Drivers were left scratching their heads after a speed limit sign was put up – for nine-and-half miles-an-hour.
The ultra-precise sign has been causing equal amusement and bewilderment to construction workers on the site and nearby residents.
The building site in Armstrong Road, Benwell, Newcastle, is operated by Gailford Try, who put up the oddly exact sign.
A builder working on the site said: “I haven’t got a clue why there’s a speed limit like that on the site.
“Most of the vehicles don’t have speedometers so you don’t know how fast the digger does, but even if it could go at half or quarter miles-per-hour, it would be very hard to judge.”
tinyurl.com/3whzb53 - links to www.chroniclelive.co.uk
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It sounds like it's either an over-zealous conversion of 15km/h, or else an odd figure has been picked to highlight the need for low speeds on site.
I've been on industrial sites with speed enforcement before - no penalty points for transgressions but a barring from the site instead, which could make life awkward for regular visitors.
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>> It sounds like it's either an over-zealous conversion of 15km/h, or else an odd figure
>> has been picked to highlight the need for low speeds on site.
The latter - which is mentioned at the end of the article.
"Richard Hancock, project manager for Galliford Try, said the signs were part of a site safety initiative. As is obvious from everyone’s interest, by making it nine-and-a-half miles-an-hour, people pay more attention."
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>> It sounds like it's either an over-zealous conversion of 15km/h, .........
At least they rounded it up from 9.32 mph to 9½ mph!
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>> tinyurl.com/3whzb53 - links to www.chroniclelive.co.uk
>>
>>
Doesn't anyone have a proper job oop there?
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..sshaaart...tarp
La's seeing this will all want one
dvd
(Not from essex)
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...Doesn't anyone have a proper job oop there?...
There's a few working for Sage Software, to name but one.
www.sage.co.uk/
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Cracking idea - people will notice it, people will talk about it. Clearly got the chattering classes going according to that report.
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 10:13
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Common sense bypass again. What was wrong with "Dead Slow" or "Caution"? Oh no, too simple, let's have another "rule". Whoopeee....In fact why don't they make all the residents wear hi-viz vests and go on a course?
The world really has gone quite potty. I'm sick of it.
My 11 year old son wasn't allowed to walk home unaccompanied from his school prom at 8.00 the other night in bright sunshine with 3 of his mates. We can see the school gates from our houses 200 yards away. It would have involved walking in a straight line in full view of the school and their homes for about 30 seconds across the village green. As soon as they got home they went back out onto the same green outside the school to kick a ball. They play there most nights but it was deemed unsafe.
At his age I used to cycle 5 miles into and across Edinburgh city centre to attend evening events at school.
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11 year old? PROM?
Its bad enough having high school proms for 16 year olds (complete with much one-upmanship by various limo hiring parents), but for 11 year olds too?
What is the world coming to? A leavers disco was all we needed, and even that was just a teacher with the record player at one end of the hall.
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Has no one pointed out that speedometers don't have half-a-mile an hour division markings? :-)
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Eggs actly. Designed to confuse, and hence engender caution.
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Which is why reckon they did it - makes a driver do a double take. Not so thick or stupid - and probably the result of some very clever lateral thinking.
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Indeed, take a driver out of a comfort zone and they become cautious and concentrate.
Its the same theory as the shared roadspace. Seems to work.
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I was aware of work in that area in Holland, and it seems to work there. They've done it on the large town square in Caernarfon and every time I drive onto it, it slows me right down as it does others, you have to "aim" for the exits that you want. Council are finally clamping down on the stupid, lazy, bozos that insist on parking on it...should make it even better,].
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In Den Oever, North Holland, goo.gl/jLNZH, even the bits with pavements are pretty tight, but with front doors opening on to the road, i don't think i got much above 10mph.
EDIT: doesnt look that tight on streetview, but i was in an oversized ridiculous american pickup
Last edited by: Skoda on Sun 24 Jul 11 at 22:55
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As cars become steadily more capable, speed limits originally set as being failsafe in the 1920s for mechanically drum-braked cars on narrow crossply tyres in the rain, and never incresed, are being extended out of urban areas to long, safe boring stretches that ought to be 40, 50 or NSL, all over the place. While in urban areas the dangerous, expensive, polluting speed bump and iron chicane are extended to the preposterous pretension of local authorities to enforcing a 20mph limit, hardly faster than the 30kph theoretical limit in small French villages. It is enough to make a saint curse, and I often do.
However I have a photo somewhere of a warning notice to motorists at the Niger Bridge at Asaba, some name like that, taken shortly after the Biafra war. The bridge was a big Bailey job several spans long with a plank road covered down the wheel tracks with clanking steel plates, single carriageway of course. That may have been the reason for the notice which read, in enormous red letters:
STOP! Then proceed at 1 m.p.h. I think it was 1 anyway. Perhaps it was 3... same difference.
What sends me into near apoplexy are these animated illuminated signs that suddenly come on with the moronic admonition SLOW DOWN. They come on whatever speed I am doing, often below the limit. Waste of money, furniture pollution, deliberately offensive, utterly half-witted, whoever thought them up (Surrey and Sussex) is doomed come the revolution.
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>> What sends me into near apoplexy are these animated illuminated signs that suddenly come on with the moronic admonition SLOW DOWN. They come on whatever speed I am doing, often below the limit. Waste of money, furniture pollution, deliberately offensive, utterly half-witted, whoever thought them up (Surrey and Sussex) is doomed come the revolution.
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IIRC there used to be a animated illuminated sign on the North Orbital Road, that stated you were too close to the vehicle in front.
What I do remember clearly, is cars getting closer together to make the sign light up....
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>> Which is why reckon they did it - makes a driver do a double take.
>> Not so thick or stupid - and probably the result of some very clever lateral
>> thinking.
>>
There are lots of other more imaginative ways of doing that.
What about Elephants Crossing, Maternity Unit - Accident only, Nuclear Alert when siren sounds, Check Tides before crossing Causeway, Soft Shoulders and Firm Thighs, Caution - Do not feed the Lions ?
All signs designed to wake people up become staid and ineffective after a while.
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>> There are lots of other more imaginative ways of doing that.
Like this?
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484326,00.html
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>> Designed to confuse,
>>
Not difficult to confuse a Northerner.
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>>Not difficult to confuse a Northerner.>>
Don't understand what you mean? :-)
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>> Has no one pointed out that speedometers don't have half-a-mile an hour division markings? :-)
>>
With lots of instruments one has to interpolate between markings.
:-)
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9½ mph speed limit bemuses Benwell residents - Dave_
