A large number of speed bumps are going to be destroyed in France, to the great delight of many motorists.
If you, too, get annoyed every time you have to suddenly press the brake pedal when approaching a speed bump, here is some news that should delight you: a very large number of speed bumps will soon be removed from French roads. On April 30, the Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal decided to enforce the rules concerning speed bumps set by a decree dated May 27, 1994. And it is clear that for years, many municipalities have been taking liberties with the regulation.
The primary purpose of a speed bump is to reduce the risk of accidents by preventing vehicles from driving too fast in built-up areas. For about twenty years, they have been springing up like mushrooms in cities under the pretext of improving road safety. Except that for some time now, they have been producing the opposite effect. Too numerous, too high, and installed in the wrong places, they have increased the number of accidents. Hence the decision to remove all those that, positioned on the entire road network in France, do not meet the standards.
And there are several thousand speed bumps that should soon disappear. Already, if you sometimes see them on roads limited to 50 km/h, know that this will soon no longer be the case. Speed bumps can only be installed on roads limited to 30 km/h or less. This means all those that have been built on roads where the authorized speed is higher than 30 km/h will have to be destroyed by the municipalities.
Suffice to say that, except in city centre streets or those near schools or daycare centres, many speed bumps will be wiped off the map. The same goes for those that have appeared less than 40 metres from a bend, 25 metres from a bridge or on a road where a public transport line or more than 3,000 vehicles per day run.
The excessive height of some speed bumps, responsible for damage to some cars, and sometimes their shapes too, will also push municipalities to remove or rebuild them to get back into line with the law. In total, about half of France’s speed bumps will have to be destroyed or replaced. A huge undertaking, but for once, motorists shouldn’t complain too much.