Annual Mudford Community speed watch report 2024

My name is Philip Sargent and I am the Mudford Community speed watch coordinator.
Mudford Community speed watch currently operates with 11 volunteers.
We operate from 6 different sites in the village at various times and days per month. 2024 has been a very challenging year to organise sessions due to the weather.

Our Police Community support officers have been in attendance this year, to support our volunteers and also show the public and Parishioners, we have the support of the Police. We are very grateful for their continued support, we are also very grateful for the efforts and support Chief Crime Commissioner, Mark Shelford has given to Community speed watch.

South Somerset speed watch organised a coordinated session on two separate days in February 2024. The first day we cancelled due to the weather.
We did manage to link up on the 29th of February with other areas in South Somerset, although it was very cold. This was generally successful.

In 2023, we carried out a total of 32 sessions over a period of 8 months we operated. An average of 4 per month, Somerton carried out the most, 145 sessions.
Most areas tend to operate 4 to 5 per month.

Mudford has a ratio of between 0.4% and 1.5% of vehicles travelling through our village that are registered as travelling at or above 36mph in a 30 zone, or 47 in a 40mph zone when we are operating. In South Somerset, the average is around 2.5%.
South Somerset average percentage is higher than ours, due to many villages having 20mph zones now.

June 2023, was the highest recorded month in S. Somerset of vehicles speeding with 1,422 speeders, of which 76 were repeat offenders.
These will receive strong correspondence, or visits from the Police.

Mudford, as we all probably would not disagree, is in the top data for high end speeders recorded through 2023.  71mph being our highest recorded speed in May 2023. High end speeders are classified as at or above 43mph in a 30 and 54mph in a 40 through Mudford, 42% of registered speeding vehicles were high end speeders in the 30 zone and 33% in the 40 zone, which is staggering statistics.

An average of 10 schemes operate across South Somerset each month.

There was 14,728 recorded speeders in 2023.This included an average of 48 repeat offender’s every month, which is 5.4% of all speeders.

Mudford sessions tend to record vehicle numbers from 400 to 850 per hour, we have recorded over 1000.

This year, we have seen a reduction in high end speeders actual speed through the village while we operate, Although the speed is still way too high. Unfortunately we cannot operate 24/7.

For January and February 2024, the average speed of vehicles speeding in the village was 42mph in the 30 zone and 53mph in the 50 zone, Highest recorded speed was in February. 56 mph in the 30 zone and 65mph in the 40 zone.

17% of the speeding vehicles in February on one particular site, were high end speeders, which is shocking.

In February 2024, 7.0% of speeding vehicles in South Somerset, were high end speeders, or 7 in 100, 70 in 1000 etc.
Therefore, Mudford is statically way higher than the county average.

What does these stats tell us??

We know Mudford A359 effectively is a straight road from Yeovil.

When we stand with our high Viz on, we are easily recognised. Our overall percentage of speeders over vehicles travelling through is low, this is due to our high visibility and the high hourly number of vehicles travelling through, which dilutes the data. But during a session we see high speeds as the percentages demonstrate.

For January and February 2024, Mudford recorded the joint highest average speed of high end speeders over the whole of South Somerset.

It’s all about building information, crucial information that can and should be listened to.

I have spoken previously regarding the following…
A vehicle registration recognition unit is now at last being trialled in a village, this operates I believe 24/7. I understand the early units trialed didn’t operate in the dark!!

I mentioned it is hoping this is an affordable unit that can be purchased, time will tell.

Thank you for being patient and listening to what might seem boring data.
Hopefully you will be able to talk about some of the stats to friends and hopefully we can gain a few more volunteers to assist us in trying to make Mudford a safer and more peaceful place to live.

Latest Traffic Watch News 30th August 2024

2 volunteers carried out speed watch on the 30th August in a 40mph speed restricted zone 8.37am to 9.37am at the bottom of Long Hill A359.
550 recorded vehicles travelling through.
24 recorded speeders, at 47mph or above.
11 vehicles at 50 mph and above.
Highest recorded speed was 61mph.