With police resources under pressure and concerns that many speed cameras are turned off, many local communities across the UK are taking it upon themselves to tackle speeding drivers.
Though they don’t have the power to issue fines or points, community volunteers do often work with police to send speeding drivers warning letters telling them that they’ve been caught speeding.
But some people have adopted some unusual techniques in their quest to get drivers to slow down as they race along their local roads.
Scarecrows
Last year, residents in one Wiltshire village created fake bobbies in their neighbourhood, after the police reportedly refused to allow residents to report dangerous driving on their high street.
They adorned the scarecrows with high-visibility jackets and equipped them with fake speed guns and a clipboard to prevent motorists from speeding.
A fake speed camera
One particularly creative resident constructed a fake speed camera. The realistic-looking 8ft tall device even flashed cars as they drove past.
Witnesses say the contraption appeared without warning in May this year, in a 40mph zone just outside of Great Shefford, West Berks.
Hairdryers and ladders
Hand-held speed guns, of the type police officers sometimes wield, could, perhaps, resemble a hairdryer – at least to a driver whizzing by at high speed.
That was the thinking behind a 2017 effort by locals in Hopeman, Morayshire, who donned fluorescent jackets and pointed the nozzles of the blowers at the road from their gardens.
In fact, they were so worried about speeding motorists, that they also reportedly popped up ladders to allow children to pass between back gardens, in an effort to keep them away from the road.
'Slow You Down'
Sometimes road safety can mean plastering an area with signs to warn motorists to take precautions and slow down.
Keen not to spoil their village with too many brash signs, residents of Wiveton in North Norfolk put up their own, more subtle signage, using the local dialect to ask drivers to "Slow You Down". It may not be the usual wording, but it gets the message across.
Watch the sheep
Collisions with animals on the road can be incredibly dangerous, so a driver might slow down if they saw a sheep wandering the streets.
However, in one case the woolly obstacle wasn’t really a threat: one man in the village of Dinnet told how he put a stuffed sheep outside his antiques shop in an attempt to draw in customers - only for cars to slam on their brakes, fearing the animal was about to step onto the road. The businessman decided to keep the sheep outside the shop to help do his bit to improve road safety in the village.
Shock tactics
Fed up with speeding drivers posing a risk to her child’s safety, one concerned parent said she snapped and created a rather unique sign saying "slow down d*******" and stuck it onto a bridge near her home.
Whether you’re driving on the motorway or past a countryside village, it’s always worth bearing in mind that speeding is not worth the time saved and can put you and other road users in serious danger.
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