THE crackdown on speeding continues in Frome, as the town council are awarded a grant of £5,000, to purchase another Speed Indicator Device (SID), from Avon and Somerset Police’s Road Safety Fund. The town council is also urging residents to upload video evidence of speeding incidents to the police’s website.
The first proposed location for the SID is along Rodden Road, following residents’ complaints of speeding and a serious recent incident where a man in his 20s was hospitalised after he collided with a skip lorry.
Speeding and the purchase of a new SID was discussed at a full Frome Town Council meeting last month, following an increase in requests and safety concerns from residents, for speeding to be tackled in key areas around the town.
Working with Frome’s Community Speed Watch team and Somerset Council, there are now 15 approved locations for SIDs across Frome.
The locations are: Styles Hill; Warminster Road; Marston Road; Bridge Street; Culverhill; Whatcombe Road; Lower Innox; Clink Road – outgoing; Clink Road- incoming; Bath Street; Locks Hill; Christchurch Street East; North Parade- Incoming; North Parade – outgoing; Fromefield.
At the meeting, the town council’s planning and development manager, Jane Llewellyn said, “There have been very few studies on the effectiveness of SIDs and we do not have any direct evidence of the impact they have in Frome. However, the evidence that has been gathered suggests that speed indicator devices provide a benefit in reducing vehicle speeds over the short term; approximately one to two weeks.”
Councillors voted on the recommendation for the SID to be installed as part of a rotational programme for at least two weeks and a maximum of three weeks, and returned after a ‘reasonable gap’ that allows drivers to forget about the previous installation.
Rodden Road
It has been recommended by town councillors to install the SID along Rodden Road first, near to the junction with Beechwood Avenue and the junction with St John’s Road.
It was also recommended to request double yellow lines in appropriate locations along Rodden Road and to purchase some “kill your speed” signs, that cost around £35 each, plus the brackets.
This follows the residents’ recent safety complaints; they have established the Rodden Road Speed and Safety Group and had a meeting with ward councillor, cllr Anita Collier, where they asked for measures such as double yellow lines; planters; a pedestrian crossing to the footpath for Rodden Meadow; and a 20mph zone to be implemented.
20mph Zone
However, Jane Llewellyn gave information from Somerset Council about why 20mph zones cannot easily be implemented saying, “For a 20mph zone, 85% of the vehicle speeds need to be currently below 24mph. Speed data needs to be taken to establish current speeds, an average speed of 24mph or below it can be changed to 20mph zone.”
A resident from the Fromefield area who has been calling for a 20mph speed limit to be introduced there, said, “Drivers have to be driving slowly in order to get a 20mph zone? That seems to me to be about as barmy as I can imagine. It’s 20mph the moment you get to Welshmill into town, why not extend to the co-op? Every day, I see the school kids coming up through Fromefield and there are hundreds of them and they are in the road mostly, the path’s very narrow. You are looking at a disaster waiting to happen. Someone is going to die. There’s two schools and a zebra crossing and drivers are doing [what feels like 60mph].”
Cllr Anita Collier said Frome Town Council had written to Somerset Council on residents’ behalf. She explained, “If you start to put 20mph limits in places around the town where there is a slightly more open space, it would be completely disregarded. It’s far better to focus on those areas that do need that limit. There are limitations [to what we can do] and that’s what we are stuck with, sadly.”
Video evidence
Jane Llewellyn said that another way residents can be proactive in tackling speeding is to upload video footage of speeding incidents to the police’s website. “The more evidence they have, the better case they can build to try and put interventions in,” said Jane. “Please if you can capture video footage, it can be on a mobile phone, dashcam or Ring doorbell.”
