If you were walking along the pavements of Sutton a few weeks ago you might have spotted some traffic survey tubes (small bore rubber pipes) stretched across Sutton Lane, Town Street and Mattersey Roads. These appeared without warning and disappeared a week later and we were left guessing what they were there for. We recognised them as “air pulse recorders”, likely installed by NCC but did not know whether they were there measuring traffic volumes or speeds of passing traffic.
This week County Councillor Tracey Taylor was able to clue us up as to what they were all about, it was actually to measure the speeds of vehicles travelling the streets of Sutton. Tracey left us with a diagram showing the results of NCC’s speed survey and that is shown above together with a photo of the air pulse lines as installed on Town Street.
The results of the speed survey are expressed as 85th percentiles at a certain speed. That left me a bit cold until I looked it up. It turns out that the expression can be interpreted thus:
On Sutton Lane the result of the speed survey expressed as 85th percentile 36mph can simply be described as 15% of vehicles travelling on Sutton Lane were exceeding 36mph and 85% less than 36 mph.
On Town Street 85th percentile 31mph. 15% exceeding 31mph and 85% less than 31%.
On Mattersey Road 85th percentile 38mph. 15% exceeding 38mph and 85% less than 38mph.
Bearing in mind the speed limit in Sutton is set at 30mph it is plain to see that there is evidence of speeding on Mattersey Road, 38mph cf. 30mph limit and 36mph cf. 30mph limit on Sutton Lane but little evidence of speeding, over the period of assessment on Town Street.
We will consider how these results tally with our own Speedwatch results in the July report. Tracey told us that the figures so determined are similar to those experienced in other villages which might lead us to conclude that speeding is an issue that impacts a number of parishes in Bassetlaw and likely why they are also in the process of establishing the Speedwatch.
NCC also installed a couple of “30mph for a reason signs” on Town Street whilst the Highways team were in Sutton last week. We believe that there are already similar signs on the other roads, maybe you would like to check that out?