Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Bollard? You’re kidding
Locals spooked by bizarre road safety measure
Child-shaped bollards installed outside a school to slow down drivers have been branded “hideous and terrifying” by some residents.
The creepy looking statuettes, in the shape of “Billy” or “Belinda”, were placed on pavements as a road safety measure after they proved a success elsewhere.
Supporters said they would make drivers think.
But residents believe they are impractical – as well as spooky. Alison Major said: “They look awful, they should have been a normal traffic bollard. They will be knocked over in no time or defaced with graffiti.
“When people know it’s just a bollard they will just continue as normal as they get used to them – so when a child does step out, the potential for them to get hit is still there.”
Connor Mcginn added: “If I was a driver they would scare me into crashing – super creepy.” Another said they were “hideous”. The eight bollards were put outside Iver Junior School and Iver Infant School and Nursery, Bucks.
They cost £5,395, including installation, according to Iver parish council. It said it considered various options but found the dummies were the most practical measure and had worked elsewhere.
In a statement on its website, the council said “Anything that we can do to raise driver awareness that there’s a school in the vicinity and young children on foot is a good thing.”
The metal and plastic figures were installed in Leicester in 2009 and later Birmingham. They apparently worked, but one critic still compared them to the white-eyed kids in the film Children of the Damned
The AA welcomed the idea at the time, with a note of caution on possible vandalism, especially at night.