SIDs

Traffic Data from the Curry Rivel Speed Indicator Devices

When you drive into Curry Rivel on the A378 from either direction, you are greeted by a device that tells you how fast you are going. But did you know that it records the speed of every car in its memory? (Don't worry, it doesn't take a note of your numberplate). Coming to the end of 2021, we have crunched the numbers for the year. The results are very interesting.

These widgets are called "speed indicator devices", or "SIDs" for short. There is one near the junction with Stanchester Way on the eastern end of the village, and another by the junction with Heale Lane, to the west.

At the Stanchester Way site, 26% of cars were exceeding the 30 mph speed limit: over a quarter. However, just 5% exceeded 35 mph, and 1% exceeded 40 mph. But that 1% is over 6000 vehicles in 2021. All very worrying, when you know that:

• Hit by a car at 40 mph, nine out of ten pedestrians will be killed.
• Hit by a car at 30 mph, about half of pedestrians will be killed.
• Hit by a car at 20 mph, nine out of ten pedestrians will survive.

Amazingly, 26 vehicles were counted going faster than 70 mph through the village in 2021!

At the Heale Lane junction site, the numbers are even worse, with over 31% breaking the 30 mph limit, 9% over 35 mph, and 2.8% over 40 mph. 78 vehicles were clocked at over 70 mph, and that's even with the Heale Lane SID being out of action with a technical problem for three months in the summer.

We can analyse the data hour by hour. As you might expect, most traffic is between 7 am and 7 pm. Between 3 am and 6 am, a full 70% of all traffic is speeding!

You can download the data collected from here.