LOWICK’S RADAR SPEED SIGNS
Anyone who visits Lowick is probably aware that it has, like most villages in Northumberland, interactive radar operated speed signs. If you are travelling at 30mph (the speed limit) or below, your speed is shown by steady lights. Over 30mph, your speed is shown by flashing lights. If you travel too fast then you will be past the sign before your speed is shown.
On of the things that makes Lowick a unique village in Northumberland, probably in the north of England and possibly in the United Kingdom, is that our speed signs collect data that is read on a monthly basis. The data is then processed and presented to the Lowick Parish Council, the Police and other interested parties. There is no need to invoke the “General Data Protection Regulation’, since the data that is collected is only the how fast a vehicle went past the sign and when it did so; no information as to which vehicle went past the sign is collected.
From the data it is possible to chart the number of vehicles against the speeds at which they go past the signs. You can also see, from the significant increase in the number of vehicles that went past the sign in an hour, when the A1 has been diverted through Lowick.
To view the JULY 2018 report, click here: 1807 July Summary
You may have seen that there was one feckless driver who went past the Vicarage between 75 and 80mph, either that or a child sprinting to get to school?! Generally however the majority of drivers go though Lowick at a responsible speed, with the 85th Percentile figure being 34.3mph and 34.5mph for the East and West Signs respectively.
(If you have forgotten or never learnt what the significance of the “85th Percentile figure” is, then here is one website that explains it: <http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html>. Lowick.Live has no connections with this website.)
Nevertheless, as these cumulative figures show, when the Police set speed traps in Lowick they have no trouble in catching selfish speeders.
In the vast majority of cases where people are struck by vehicles, it is the pedestrians fault. So drivers might think that they are travelling at a safe speed, even though they are exceeding the speed limit, but a child could just run out into the road in front of them regardless.
According to ROSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents), “Multiple studies… have shown that pedestrians are more likely to be severely or fatally injured when hit by cars at higher speeds, and particularly when the car is travelling more than 30 mph. An analysis of vehicle speed in pedestrian fatalities in Great Britain4 , found that 85% of pedestrians killed when struck by cars or car-derived vans, died in collision that occurred at impact speeds below 40mph, 45% at less than 30 mph and 5% at speeds below 20 mph.”
It may not be the driver’s fault, but they will be in Court and it will still be on their conscience, if they injure or kill someone because they were exceeding the speed limit in Lowick.
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