Traffic calming uses physical design, signs, painted markings, road use rule changes, and other transportation engineering measures to improve safety for motorists, car drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. It has become a tool used by urban planners and road designers to combat speeding and other unsafe behaviours of drivers. It aims to encourage safer, more responsible driving and potentially reduce traffic flow. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming, including narrowed roads and speed humps. Such measures are common in Australia and Europe (especially Northern Europe), but less so in North America, where the focus is often more on facilitating motorized traffic flow. Traffic calming is a calque (literal translation) of the German word Verkehrsberuhigung – the term's first published use in English was in 1985 by Carmen Hass-Klau.
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👉 Traffic calming in the context of Traffic safety
Road traffic safety refers to the methods and measures, such as traffic calming, to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, passengers of vehicles, and passengers of on-road public transport, mainly buses and trams.
Best practices in modern road safety strategy:
Traffic calming in the context of Speed cushion
Speed bumps (also called traffic thresholds, speed breakers or sleeping policemen) are a class of traffic calming devices that use vertical deflection to slow motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve safety conditions. Variations include the speed hump, speed cushion, and speed table.
The use of vertical deflection devices is widespread around the world, and they are most commonly used to enforce a speed limit under 40 km/h (25 mph).
Traffic calming in the context of Curb extension
A curb extension (or also neckdown, kerb extension, bulb-out, bump-out, kerb build-out, nib, elephant ear, curb bulge, curb bulb, or blister) is a traffic calming measure which widens the sidewalk for a short distance. This reduces the crossing distance and allows pedestrians and drivers to see each other when parked vehicles would otherwise block visibility. The practice of banning car parking near intersections (with or without a curb extension) is referred to as daylighting the intersection.
A curb extension is formed by an angled narrowing of the roadway and a widening of the sidewalk. This is often accompanied by an area of enhanced restrictions (such as a "no stopping" or "no parking" zone) and the appropriate visual reinforcement. This is achieved using painted road markings (e.g. lines, coloured areas, or chevrons), barriers, bollards, or the addition of pavement or street furniture (e.g. planters, street lights, or benches).
Traffic calming in the context of Roundabout
A roundabout, a rotary and a traffic circle are types of circular road in which traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island.
In the United States, engineers use the term modern roundabout to refer to junctions installed after 1960 that incorporate design rules to increase safety. Compared to stop signs, traffic signals, and earlier forms of roundabouts, modern roundabouts reduce the likelihood and severity of collisions greatly by reducing traffic speeds through horizontal deflection and minimising T-bone and head-on collisions. Variations on the basic concept include integration with tram or train lines, two-way flow, higher speeds and many others.