Residents use children’s toys to slow speeding drivers

Residents in rural areas are placing children’s bicycles, scooters and plastic cars by the roadside in an effort to slow speeding drivers, DR reports. But the Danish Road Safety Council and motorists’ organisation FDM are sceptical about the method.

Søren Nielsen lives beside a country road near Hoby in southwestern Lolland. Because he has grandchildren and cats, he has placed a small toy tractor by the road in the hope that drivers will reduce their speed and pay closer attention.

“Some people take it seriously, while others are rather indifferent,” Nielsen says.

The Danish Road Safety Council and FDM say they understand homeowners’ concerns, but recommend contacting the police and municipality instead of leaving the toys by the road.

“I understand that people can become desperate and frightened when drivers go very fast in their local area. But it is not necessarily the most effective way to improve road safety in the long term,” says Jakob Bøving Arendt, director of the Danish Road Safety Council.

The council also warns that the toys could create safety problems. Drivers may stop taking a tricycle seriously after seeing it in the same place repeatedly, while the objects could roll into the road and endanger traffic.

Police can measure speeds

Police say they have several ways to help residents determine whether there is a genuine speeding problem. Officers can carry out speed checks, says Mikkel Kjærgaard, deputy police inspector with South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police.

Visible police checks may also encourage drivers to slow down. Kjærgaard says drivers can remember seeing a police motorcycle, an automatic speed camera vehicle or a patrol car in the same location the previous day.

Nielsen fears, however, that speed checks will not be carried out often enough.

“It needs to happen more often than it does now. Drivers who only come here occasionally, such as people travelling to holiday homes, do not see it,” he says.