ALL road humps would be ripped out under a Conservative plan to make traffic flow more smoothly.

The Tories will today claim that humps cost more lives than they save because they delay the emergency services and cause pollution because drivers repeatedly have to slow down and speed up, reducing fuel efficiency and raising emissions.

Many residents have also complained about the noise from cars accelerating away from humps. Councils have investigated claims that the vibration caused by bouncing over humps may result in structural damage to properties.

A Conservative amendment to the Road Safety Bill, being debated in the Commons today, proposes that no new speed humps should be permitted on any public road. It adds: “Within two years of the commencement of this Act every highway authority shall ensure that all speed humps constructed for traffic-calming purposes shall be removed from all public roads within their area.”

Tim Yeo, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: “Superficially, road humps may seem an attractive solution. But they probably do more harm than good.

“Both safety and environmental considerations are better served by cars travelling at a steady 20mph rather than constantly speeding up and slowing down.”

Mr Yeo said he was regularly annoyed by having to negotiate humps when driving and believed the policy would win broad support among Britain’s 30 million motorists.

But he admitted that the Conservatives had conducted no research on the costs of digging up humps, adding later: “We are minded to remove humps, subject to the cost of doing so.”

The London Ambulance Service has claimed that humps cause up to 500 deaths a year because its crews are delayed in reaching cardiac arrest victims.

Road safety groups said the benefits of faster response times would be far outweighed by the extra casualties resulting from drivers speeding on hump-free streets. Deaths and serious injuries in road crashes fell by 57 per cent after the introduction of 20mph zones enforced by humps.

The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said: “This Conservative policy runs counter to all the research, which shows that humps reduce speed and save lives. We find this strange because humps were introduced in the early 1980s when the Conservatives were in power.”

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said any local authority which removed humps might be sued by the families of people killed by speeding vehicles.

HOW WE GOT THE HUMPS

• The 1981 Transport Act gave local authorities the power to install road humps
• There are more than 30,000 humps in London and at least that number in the rest of the country
• Speed cushions, the rows of square humps which allow cyclists to pass in between, cost about £1,000
• Speed tables, which have a long flat top, cost up to £15,000
• Humps in 20mph zones cause the average speed to fall by 9mph and traffic to drop by 27 per cent

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Sarah Brown says 'no thanks' to veal at G8 - twice
• Stockton-on-Tees is obesity capital of Britain
• Stores blame poor sales on Murray factor