Question
For years, many Earley residents have raised concerns about speeding along Redhatch Drive. The road and neighbourhood design contribute to drivers regularly traveling in excess of 35mph on this road with its 30mph speed limit. Despite good visibility splays, the speed with which many vehicles travel make this very dangerous for vehicles entering from side streets. The Beech Lane end in particular is used by many school children. Many of the elderly residents living in Redhatch Drive and neighbouring roads finding it difficult, as pedestrians or drivers themselves, to accurately judge the speed of fast approaching vehicles. Earley Town Council’s submission on the 22nd July 202 to a WBC speed limit consultation recommended with regards to Redhatch Drive to: retain the current 30 mph speed limit, but install appropriate VAS signage. Additional speed limit signage at the Elm Lane and Beech Lane ends of Redhatch Drive. Request WBC highways engineers investigate possibilities for traffic calming measures, such as chicanes and rumble strips. Will the Executive Member for Highways support Earley Town Council’s recommendations for Redhatch Drive?
Minutes:
Question
For years, many Earley residents have raised concerns about speeding along Redhatch Drive. The road and neighbourhood design contribute to drivers regularly traveling in excess of 35mph on this road with its 30mph speed limit. Despite good visibility splays, the speed with which many vehicles travel make this very dangerous for vehicles entering from side streets. The Beech Lane end in particular is used by many school children. Many of the elderly residents living in Redhatch Drive and neighbouring roads finding it difficult, as pedestrians or drivers themselves, to accurately judge the speed of fast approaching vehicles. Earley Town Council’s submission on the 22nd July 202 to a WBC speed limit consultation recommended with regards to Redhatch Drive to: retain the current 30 mph speed limit, but install appropriate VAS signage. Additional speed limit signage at the Elm Lane and Beech Lane ends of Redhatch Drive. Request WBC highways engineers investigate possibilities for traffic calming measures, such as chicanes and rumble strips. Will the Executive Member for Highways support Earley Town Council’s recommendations for Redhatch Drive?
The Council is aware of two requests raised by residents of Redhatch Drive about traffic speeds and the submission from Earley Town Council as part of the Borough-wide Speed Limit Review in 2020, and I have also seen one recently from the Town Council as a result of our speed limit consultations. We acknowledge the road safety concerns of residents and school children in particular using this road.
Despite common perceptions, the road has actually got a very good safety record, with one personal injury collision recorded by the police over the past 10 years. Whilst the Council’s speed limit review has still to be concluded, I am able to confirm that speed data recorded for Redhatch Drive indicates that average vehicle speeds, upon which speed limits are based, are broadly compliant with the existing 30mph speed limit, during peak/off peak hours on all days across the week.
However, in the section between Wychwood Crescent and Collins Drive, 85%ile speeds are in excess of the level normally used by Thames Valley Police for speed enforcement purposes and the likelihood of speeds higher than this occurring at times is acknowledged. As a result, I am able to confirm that Officers have already added Redhatch Drive to the Council’s programme for temporary VAS signs and regular monitoring via the Council’s Road Safety Dashboard.
In the event that recorded speeds remain unchanged as a result of the VAS signs and/or any deterioration is identified in the current safety record, we will investigate options for speed management measures appropriate to the residential environment and will consult with the residents, Town Council and elected Members.
Supplementary Question
It would be interesting to know what the next updates will be.
Supplementary Answer
Do you mean the next updates in terms of what we might do? I think we have a couple of problems with this road as the design of it means that it is very straight and therefore it is easy to speed on it. I think we would struggle with rumble strips because as you have seen with the speed limit humps in Beech Lane they cause a lot of noise to the residents that live by them and also if you put humps in they cause vibrations. So, for every resident that thinks they are a great idea there is another one who thinks they are terrible, and it actually increases the noise in people’s houses. So, rumble strips and speed humps are probably not likely.
My experience with chicanes, which we have seen on Rushey Way, is that what they are essentially is a challenge to people to zig zag around them if you get them at the wrong distance. So, what happens is people, especially when the road is quiet, drive really fast and take it as a challenge to see if they can slalom round them and also with the ones opposite Hillside School the reason we reduced the distance between them is because you can actually build up quite a lot of speed between them. So, I am not entirely convinced that either chicanes or rumble strips or humps would help and think it might make it worse. But we will certainly keep monitoring it and will look at it again and we will certainly put the VAS in.