THE Government has ordered local authorities to consider removing thousands of road humps after an ambulance service leader complained that they were costing lives by delaying the response to emergencies.

The Department for Transport has written to every council in England and Wales telling them to consult emergency services before installing any more humps. And the DfT’s road safety division also tells councils to review existing humps identified by ambulance, fire and police services as causing a problem.

The letter is responding to a complaint from the London Ambulance Service “which suggests that many lives could be saved if their vehicles were not restricted by traffic-calming measures”.

It adds: “The Department acknowledges that full consideration should be given to the wider implications of introducing traffic-calming measures on our roads. This is particularly important with regard to response times for the emergency services.”

Sigurd Reinton, the service’s chairman, has suggested that London’s road humps, estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, are to blame for up to 500 deaths from cardiac arrest a year.

Mr Reinton, a former director of management consultancy McKinsey who was appointed to tackle the service’s poor response time to 999 calls, said that every minute’s delay resulted in a 10 per cent drop in the survival rate from cardiac arrest.

“By installing more humps and slowing traffic we may be able to prevent more road deaths but it’s also possible we end up paying for that with many more lives lost,” he said.

A recent internal survey by a service paramedic found that many ambulance drivers answering emergency calls took detours to avoid humps. They also delayed treatment inside ambulances, such as inserting intravenous drips, because of the jolts caused by humps.

Road humps have delayed the introduction of a £4 million fleet of new ambulances in Yorkshire because the hydraulic lifts on the backs of the vehicles were hitting the tops of the humps. The ambulances are now being modified.

Liverpool City Council is lowering some of its 10cm-high humps because hearses were grounding on the way to funerals. Many councils have ignored DfT advice which said humps above 7.5cm were “not recommended”.

Barnet council in North London has already begun removing its 500 humps after claiming that there was no proven safety benefit.

Brian Coleman, a Barnet councillor and deputy-leader of the London Assembly Conservatives, said 60 humps had been removed in the past year as roads were resurfaced.

He said humps were not just disliked by motorists. “They are also desperately unpopular with residents and they are hated by the disabled and cyclists.”