Fake speed bumps painted onto road leave motorists baffled (2025)

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It may sound more like an overdue April fools joke.

But now council chiefs are facing ridicule after painting fake speed bumps on a road in a cut-price bid to slow down traffic.

Residents in Culloden, Inverness-shire, were left baffled by Highland Council’s decision to paint ‘flat stickers’ on a busy road instead of installing raised bumps.

And according to locals - they are not even visible in the dark.

Councillor Trish Robertson asked for measures to be introduced on Ferntower Road, which has a 20mph limit, to reduce the speed of cars and improve safety for crossing school children.

But she said: ‘This is just a waste of paint. It’s just marks on the road and will have no effect whatsoever. It doesn’t even look like a bump.’

The two-dimensional squares feature shaded sections and a white mark to alert drivers in an effort to create the illusion of the ground being raised.

But the councillor said residents told her that even the workmen who painted them on were ‘laughing, saying it will never work’.

She added: ‘I actually thought myself it was an April Fool, but it’s certainly not - they really are painted on the road. I don’t know who came up with this idea. But I can’t see it catching on in other areas.’

Aberdeen City Council, meanwhile, has been criticised for being unable to fuel its £8million fleet of hydrogen buses.

The world’s first eco-friendly double-deckers have been off the roads since last summer because both the city’s refuelling stations are offline.

Aberdeen councillor Deena Tissera said: ‘These buses are rotting in First Bus yard with the council tax payer paying for that privilege.

'It is beyond a joke how the SNP have allowed such an important project evaporate at a time where bus fares are rising and the public are being short changed by an incompetent SNP administration’.

A council spokesman said: ‘The hydrogen buses have been out of operation since late September 2024 following a technical fault at the Cove Hydrogen Plant which had been servicing some of the bus demand following the closure of the main bus-focussed Kittybrewster plant in July 2024.’

He added that ‘demand is forecast to be greater than the supply presently available’ but the council continues to work with its partners, including operators First Bus, ‘to develop new infrastructure and technologies in Aberdeen’.

The spokesman said that ‘as more facilities come on stream, interruption to the bus fleet will be reduced’.

Highland Council said Transport Scotland had provided the funding for the ‘year-long pilot’ as the council aims to deliver ‘safer, healthier and greener’ roads networks through ‘improved street design, embracing technology and welcoming innovation’.

A spokesman added: ‘Like all of our initiatives, the primary goal is to reduce collisions and enhance active travel by improving road safety within local communities.

‘We will be monitoring the speed limits on the roads before and after these markings have been implemented, to assess the pilot’s effectiveness.

'However, the full impact won’t be clear until long-term speed data has been collected.’

SNP

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