We've had the rising bollard, so why not try deflatable road humps as well? STEPHEN LEWIS begins his report by talking to a man with a reason to resent the speed humps now in use

YOU can't blame Tom Hynes for having the hump with road humps. They were, after all, responsible for not one but two of his family cars being pranged in the same bizarre accident three years ago. And it wasn't even his fault.

The two cars, a Volvo and a Metro, had been parked safely at the side of the road outside his home in Foxwood Lane, York. A third car, an Escort belonging to a gas repair man, was parked in between.

A car speeding along the road had a disagreement with a hump, flew into the air, landed on two wheels and careered across the road into Tom's Volvo.

The Volvo shunted into the Escort, which shunted into the Metro. Metro and Volvo were both wrecked - though bizarrely the Escort in the middle was almost undamaged.

So given his history it's not surprising that Tom, a 43-year-old support worker with City of York Council, isn't the biggest fan of the sleeping policeman.

"Everywhere you go it's humps, humps, humps," he grumbles. "Where I live in Foxwood Lane, the whole road is speed humps. I used to have a Capri, and I had the whole sump ripped out. I went to B&Q to get a load of concrete. I was only doing about 15mph but the car was that low it took out the whole sump. So you could say I'm really humped off."

He's not the only one. Evening Press letter writers have been eloquent about the damage caused to the undercarriage of their prized motor vehicles by the obdurate lumps of solid concrete that stretch from side to side across the road.

As far as Tom is concerned, they don't even do much good. The real speed-merchants - joyriding teenagers - don't take any notice of them anyway, he says.

"They're going up and down at 60mph all the time," he says. "And they don't care, because they're not their cars."

Driving around York - especially around some of the back streets - can feel a bit like negotiating an army assault course. There are the speed humps, jolting your spine and sending a shudder through your car's innards each time you negotiate them; the chicanes, traffic islands and red lights which slow rush-hour traffic to a crawl - and the rising bollard.

Then there are the 'speed cushions' - those odd, square-shaped raised patches in the middle of each side of the road that seem to have been put in place for the express purpose of encouraging the motorist to indulge in a game of zig-zag, weaving in and out to try to avoid them.

It's easy to criticise such obstacles, but traffic calming measures are there for a reason - and it's a very good and simple one, whatever frustrated motorists might think. They save lives.

Peter Evely, head of highways regulation at City of York Council, points out that at 30mph, even a one mph reduction in speed can reduce road accidents by five per cent.

It may not sound much - but if you or your child is one of those lucky five per cent, it could mean the world. In several areas of York now, usually near to schools, the speed limit has been reduced to just 20mph.

No parent is going to complain about that. And love'em or loathe'em, speed humps are one of the ways traffic chiefs make sure motorists stick to those limits.

Now, though, we may be able to have the best of both worlds. Because there's a wonderful new invention being tested in London which could take the hump out of the speed humps.

Boffins at Dunlop GRG in Manchester have come up with the idea of deflatable rubber speed humps which can sense how fast a car is approaching. The 'intelligent' hump is designed to collapse flat for vehicles travelling within the speed limit - but stay rock hard if you're going too fast.

One of the great things about this wondrous gizmo is that local traffic chiefs, apparently, can programme it to any speed they want, depending on the local speed limit. And the 'intelligent' humps can even be set to deflate automatically if a vehicle over a certain weight approaches - great news for ambulances, which can be seriously delayed by concrete humps.

All of which sounds a good idea. Doesn't it? "I think it would be better than the ones they have at the moment," Tom Hynes agrees grudgingly.

People out about their business in The Groves area of York certainly seemed to agree.

Building contractor David Taylor, from Micklegate, at work in Park Grove where there is a 20mph limit, cracks up when he's first told about the humps. But he does agree they could work.

"It sounds OK," he gasps between bouts of laughter. "If it works then it sounds wonderful."

Windscreen fitter Steve Snowden, from Pocklington, who's at work a bit further along in Neville Terrace, agrees.

Speed humps definitely save lives and they are on balance a good thing, he says - but they don't do cars a lot of good. They can even, he assures me, crack the windscreens. "Especially where they have used hot water on the windscreen. If you don't go into them head-on, the car twists and the windscreen can crack."

Well, I never. So how about deflatable humps? "A good idea," he says. "A very good idea. Speed humps can cause an awful lot of problems, especially with older cars."

All very fascinating, but will we ever get these deflatable sleeping policemen in York?

"It's certainly something that we would be interested in," says Peter Evely. "We recognise that there is a strong measure of concern in the community about physical measures to slow speeds down. So we are interested in all the ideas that are emerging. It may well be that it finds a place once it has been properly tested."

The worrying aspect of sophisticated technology, of course, is the possibility that it may sometimes go wrong. York's rising bollard has worked perfectly, but what if the new 'intelligent' humps were less reliable? What if - perish the thought - one was suddenly to spring back to full, vigorous size when your car was half over it, catapulting you and your vehicle into the River Ouse?

The response from Peter Evely is dry.

"That would be an extremely unlikely eventuality. The DETR is extremely strict in making sure that any piece of equipment that is placed on a highway, whether it is a traffic signal or a hump that rises up, is fully tested before it is allowed to be used," he says.

Phew! That's all right then. Still, I can't help feeling that we really might be better off letting sleeping policemen lie. At least then we know where they stand.

Updated: 11:27 Thursday, February 15, 2001