Is it an offence to impersonate a sleeping policeman?

[desperance]

I live in the rough end of town, where we get a fair amount of joyriding and otherwise damn bad driving. In consequence, there's a fair amount of what they like to call "traffic-calming measures" hereabouts - specifically sudden sharp chicanes, and bumps in the road that are not so much ridges as whole damn plateaux.

However, Newcastle is a small city, and in most quarters the rich and the poor live pretty much cheek by jowl. A five-minute walk from my door brings me to wide and tree-lined streets where the houses cost three-quarters of a million or more.

Where, I am startled to observe, they have introduced a traffic-calming measure. Not for the residents, clearly, it must be to disencourage the yobs; but joy of joys, it's deceptive. It's a fake. It's a trompe-l'oeuil sleeping policeman...

White paint on tarmac, is all it is; but it's terribly clever, it looks exactly like a real lumpy bump in the road. As a pedestrian, I had to walk right over it to assure myself that there really wasn't any rise or fall. It's that good.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's Art?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It isn't signed, as far as I noticed.

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Photograph?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I thought I might. But prob'ly not today. It feels far - over the moor! past the cows! - although in fact it's not. I know I said five minutes; it's probably ten. And I have been that way already, and collected my veggies, and... Nah. I'm stayin' home.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

The effect will be dependent upon A; the yobs stopping looking for blue flashers in the mirror long enough to see it and go 'Wae the F***!!!', and B: the locals being able to drag themselves away from their mobiles long enough to go 'What the F***?'

[kimsheard.livejournal.com]

I read about those somewhere. Paint is cheaper than building an actual speedbump. I can't imagine it will fool many people for long, though.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose they will, intellectually. Presumably the hope is that the eye will overrule the mind regardless, still see a bump and react to it even when the brain is saying "Nah, it isn't, honest it isn't..."

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

Judging by the idiots who zoom around here, their eye sees a real sleeping policeman and the brain says 'Faster! Faster!'

[desperance.livejournal.com]

That's how our hotrodders treat the chicanes: as a racing challenge. I have yet to comprehend the mind-set that says "We have a problem with young men driving at high speed; let's put in some chicanes to slow them down." Yeah, right...

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Motorist slows down, notices there is no bump. Sees another, decides it too is a fake, steps on the gas. Car launched into space!