Other councils are already ripping up the humps. In Barnet, north London, councillors say they have “declared war on the road hump” and are promising to rip out 1,000 of them to turn the borough into a hump-free zone. In Liverpool, humps are being lowered by an inch on 100 roads after hearses were running aground on them. The cost to taxpayers there will be an estimated £1.25m.

Last month saw the creation of the first speed bump martyr. Ian Beesley, a builder from Oxford, was prosecuted after he dug up a hump outside his house because noise from lorries hitting it stopped him sleeping.

Digging up the hump was a clear breach of the law, but even David Blunkett, the home secretary, was moved to say he had “a great deal of sympathy” for the man. The judge fined Beesley £763 for causing criminal damage, but added that he, too, felt sympathetic.

The reason for the widespread frustration with humps seems simple: their numbers have been spiralling out of control. As part of its generally commendable attempt to cut road casualties the government has been encouraging the spread of 20mph limits, or “home zones”.

Unfortunately, the police are reluctant to enforce these lower limits, so it usually means that humps are used to implement the policy. Estimates suggest there are at least 100,000 in the country.

“Let’s be clear: humps are very good at saving lives if they are put in the right places,” says Paul Watters, the AA Motoring Trust’s head of roads and transport policy. “The problem is that there is this belief that they can solve all the problems of local communities. Overkill is absolutely enormous with humps. There must be thousands that aren’t justified.

“The reason that humps went wrong is that the Department for Transport slackened up on guidance. In the 1980s the regulations were so tight that authorities were not able to put them in many locations. Gradually, the restrictions were watered down, until by the mid-1990s they were given pretty much a free hand to do what they liked.”

The issue is soon to come under even closer scrutiny. The London Assembly has launched an investigation into the effects of speed bumps across the capital, with the first hearing next month.

A negative verdict could ultimately lead to humps being ripped up across the capital at a cost of millions of pounds.

Lynne Featherstone, the chairwoman of the London Assembly’s transport committee, called for the investigation after looking up accident records for one road in her area that had humps installed and finding little statistical benefit.

“You’ve got complaints from ambulances saying they can’t get along the road, complaints from people with bad backs on buses saying it’s sheer agony, and you’ve got people all along the road claiming they are suffering noise, disturbance and subsidence in their houses,” says Featherstone.

“The whole issue is going up the agenda and I have been itching to get some proper independent evaluation done on road humps.”