Speed Humps in the UK have a bigger carbon footprint than the whole of Fiji!

PRLog (Press Release) – Jul 06, 2009 – Speed-bump, road hump, speed ramp or sleeping policemen. Let’s face it by any name they are the bane of urban driving (unless of course you make your living selling replacement shock absorbers). They’re a hassle, damage cars and can cause urbanites to drive otherwise unnecessary 4×4s as they’re the only vehicles which shrug them off easily. Yes, average speeds are reduced, but so is your attention of what’s up ahead as you’re trying not to clout your exhaust on that unnecessary piece of road calming. Other complaints made against them are that they slow down emergency services (endangering lives), they are particularly unhealthy for people with back or neck pain and create noise for local residents.
But research by Clear, the carbon offset company, can add another one, that the CO2 impact of Speed Humps in the UK is greater than that of the whole of Fiji. Let us tell you how.
The AA (Automobile Association) did a bit of research on fuel consumption for cars at the Millbrook Proving Ground and found that a typical mid-size car running at a constant 30 mph did 58 mpg. However a car slowing down and speeding up for speed humps only did 31 mpg. Put that into carbon figures1 for a petrol car2 and you get 113 g/km of CO2 at a constant 30mph, or 211 g/km over speed humps. So a kilometer of road with speed humps creates an extra 0.1kg of CO2 for every single car that travels it.
The average road in the UK has 2.46 cars passing per minute throughout the day3, so for argument’s sake, a street typically has 1 car going each way down it every minute during the day and night. In a year, that means a single typical 1km stretch of speed-humped road with 10 speed humps4 creates an extra 103 tonnes of unnecessary CO2 per year or equivalent of taking 32 cars off the road5 .
Taking into account the UK’s estimated 100,0006 speed humps, then that’s a colossal 1.03 million tonnes of CO2 per year. That’s about the same as the total carbon footprint of the 830,000 residents of Fiji7, or almost twice that of Greenland. Ouch. And that doesn’t even consider the motorbikes / trucks and other vehicles that use the UK road network.
Release ends.


For further information please contact:
Ben Hedley

ben@ clear-offset.com


Notes for Editors
• Clear, the carbon offset company was the first company in the world to qualify for the UK Government’s Quality Assurance Scheme for Carbon Offsetting. It is the first government backed quality mark for carbon offsets in the world and sets the highest standards yet for the international carbon offsetting industry.  All their carbon offset products meet the criteria for a key aspect of the QAS – accuracy of carbon footprint measurement.  More details can be found on the QAS website at  http://offsetting.defra.gov.uk/  
• Clear is an innovative carbon offset company which provides free carbon calculation services for consumers and businesses. Clear’s research aims to show individuals and businesses the real carbon footprints of their actions, and help them to reduce them. It worked closely with the Government on the calculation standards for the QAS.  More information can be found at http://www.clear-offset.com.
• You can consol yourself that as a UK taxpayer, based on the estimate that 50 standard humps 5km of connecting residential streets costs about £150,000. So the UK speed hump population cost us £300 million pounds.
• Footnotes:
1. Clear research / UK Government conversion factors – DEFRA GHG Guidelines. (http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/i ...)

2. A diesel car is slightly worse with 128 v 240 g/km – one litre of petrol produces 2.315kg of CO2, whereas 1 litre of diesel produces 2.630 kg of CO2. (source as 1)

3. 397,403 km / 246,988 miles of road in the UK (Ordnance Survey Mapping, 2006). There are about 32m cars in the UK (DfT 2003), which travel an average of 10,000 miles per annum (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders - http://www.smmt.co.uk/home.cfm ). Therefore an average stretch of road in the UK should have 2.46 cars / minute pass. 1 car per minute on an urban road is not an unreasonable estimate of a typical urban road.

4. Legal requirements that in a 20mph zone, speed humps may be no further than 100m apart. (Camden Council “Speed humps and traffic calming” - http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/transport-and-streets/traffic-management/speed-humps-and-traffic-calming.en .

5. DEFRA GHG Guidelines - Annex 6 - Passenger Transport Conversion Tables (as before). Unknown car 204.2g/km. Average mileage per annum in the UK – 10,000 from SMMT road transport assumptions (as before). Average unknown car produces 3.219 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

6. From the Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/is-this-the-end-of-the-road-for-the-speed-bump-567834.html )

7. 2004 figures – data collected in 2007 by the CDIAC for United Nations (http://cdiac.ornl.gov) .

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Clear is a carbon offset company on a mission - to provide the best carbon offsets available worldwide, and are the first to be approved by the new UK Government Quality Assurance Scheme