Sir, – My wife and I drove along the A6108 through Skeeby on Monday afternoon towards Scotch Corner just as they were reinstalling the speed cushions.

We went across the first two that were installed.

However, even in a normal car and at 20mph in anticipation we still “banged” over them. On the return trip home, trying them at 15mph was still bumpy.

North Yorkshire County Council must be having an “end-of-year spend” because the last information I read was that they were talking about a speed warning matrix display.

We will be back to the situation which I saw on numerous occasions when the cushions were previously in place. Lorries, coaches and other wider vehicles not slowing down as they could straggle the cushions.

Cars driving up the middle of the road between the cushions or going half up onto the pavement.

Because of the volume of traffic they also often needed maintenance as they fell apart, making them a further hazard for road users.

Cars will be slowing right down to avoid damaging tyres, suspension etc, whilst larger vehicles invariably won’t be, which will lead to accidents.

Surely there must be a more effective way of dealing with the selfish and irresponsible minority who speed through the village without penalising the majority who do drive responsibly.

The idea of any traffic-calming measure is to slow traffic down, not to create problems.

This type of cushion is more appropriate for use in car parks or other areas where traffic speed needs reducing to a walking pace.

We then continued along the A6108 to go into Richmond Market Place, which meant driving through another issue involving parking at the end of the school day, along Darlington Road.

Cars are using the designated parking zones on the road outside Richmond School. However on the opposite side of the road, cars are now regularly parking there, half on and off the grassed verge.

What was just one or two vehicles has now turned into larger numbers, which creates all sorts of problems. Vehicles of all sizes are going in both directions trying to negotiate the now reduced road space.

Added to this, cars are trying to get on and off this grass verge whilst parents are getting their children into their cars which are parked on both sides of the road.

It was congested enough before, but due to this increase in poor parking the chances of someone getting injured or, even worse, killed, has increased.

PAUL BUCKLE Richmond.