Village like a ‘race track’ after potholes replaced by ‘smoothest speed bumps’
Residents of a small village say it has been turned into a ‘race track’ after the council replaced potholes with the ‘smoothest speed bumps in England’.
John Smith, who has lived in Thornton, near Middlesbrough, for eight years, says they have been ‘plagued’ by speeding drivers for years.
The 61-year-old said locals pleaded with the town hall to intervene after several incidents, but are now furious after bumps ‘narrower than the width of a car’s wheels’ were installed.
John said sometimes you ‘don’t even feel you have gone over one’, adding: ‘It’s unbelievable.’
Local councillor David Coupe has been working on the issue of speeding and said the council would soon be making the speed bumps a ‘bit more prominent.’
John said: ‘I was watching them go down the road yesterday evening and you don’t even have to touch your break. You don’t even put your foot on the break. It’s unbelievable.
‘We have been plagued with speeding traffic all the time. We have been complaining to Middlesbrough Council for years and years.
‘Eventually, the road was so shot with potholes that they resurfaced it, and they agreed to put speed bumps on. But the speed bumps they have put on are unbelievable.’
He continued: ‘If you look at it in rush hour, maybe between 7pm and 9pm, it’s unbelievable because it is a bit like a rat run. I know people who are using it to get to Portrack Lane who live in Stokesley and stuff like that. It is just constant.’
John said he ‘daren’t go out’ sometimes because the speeding problems have become so bad.
Councillor Coupe explained about the initiative of widening the speed bumps and said: ‘What we have agreed with the engineer is that it is going to be widened and slightly higher. That should sort the problem out.
‘But if you make it too wide and high, the residents won’t be happy because of the noise it will make.’
He said despite the bumps being made higher and wider, they will ‘only slow the people down that want to be slowed down.’
Despite this, he believes it is the ‘best we can do’ to tackle the speeding.
He said he has put ‘tens and tens of hours’ into working with Middlesbrough Council to make sure this problem is resolved and hopes it will be completed in the next financial year.
Middlesbrough Council has been contacted for comment by Metro.
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